^mm^ 


-fS>*#f*>-^ 


'^m**-" 


I    MUST    KEEP    THE    CHIMES    GOING. 


w'if^ 


"I  wonder  whether  they  keep  Christmas  in  heaven. 


P.  44- 


I   MUST    KEEP    THE   CHIMES 
GOING. 


^  ^torg  of  Eeal  3Life, 


BY 


THE  AUTHOR  OF   "  COPSLEY  ANNALS,"  &c.,  &c. 


"  Church-bells  above  the  starres  hearde."  —  George  IIkubeut. 


'f^^^P^ 


E.  P.  DUTTON   AND   COIMPANY. 

m 

Boston:    135,   Washington   Street. 
New  York:  762,  Broadway. 

1869. 


y      J   »    J  '   '       '  '  ,     ,'    • 


♦  i      .»      3 


CAMBRIDGE: 
STKRBOTYPED  AND  PRINTED  BY   JOHN   WILSON    AND   SON. 


"^ 


No  Preface  is  required  for  the  following 
chapters  beyond  the  statement  that  the  story 
contained  in  them  is  substantially  true. 


'wiJ-i. /w«3H 


COISTTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The  Message 9 

II.  Christmas  at  the  Brookes'  Cottage  ....  26 

III.  First  Class  and  Third  Class 49 

IV.  No.  19,  Mill  Street,  Southwark 76 

V.  Martha  and  the  Top  Attic  Make  Friends    .  93 

VI.  Martha  Finds  the  Coa^s  Heavier 116 

VII.  Martha  has  Visitors 137 

Vni.  Last  Words 144 


I  MUST  KEEP  THE  CHIMES  GOING. 


CHAPTER    I. 


THE    MESSAGE. 


1?^ 

!Z 

1 

I T  was  the  Sunday  before  Christmas- 
day  ;  and  the  girls  of  the  Rectory 
Bible  Class  were  coming  down  the 
Winthrop  Avenue  in  parties  of  two  and 
three,  after  having  been  dismissed  by  Mrs. 
Estridge,  the  Rector's  wife,  at  the  conclusion 
of  her  customary  afternoon  instructions.  It 
was  a  class  composed  of  the  usual  materials. 
There  were  the  girls  who  were  always  punctual, 
and  the  girl  that  was  always  late.  There  was 
the  dressy  girl,  whose  Sunday  array  was  a 
source  of  perpetual  astonishment  to  her  com- 


10  THE  MESSAGE. 

panions,  and  still  more  to  her  teacher;  and 
there  was  the  untidy  girl,  whose  garments 
seemed  to  be  continually  on  terms  of  misun- 
derstanding with  their  wearer  and  wdth  each 
other.  There  was  the  girl  who  always  seemed 
to  be  on  the  brink  of  making  a  successful 
answer,  and  who  ever  stoj^ped  short  of  that 
result ;  and  the  girl  who  never  thought  of 
answering  at  all.  There  was  the  girl  who  kept 
on  hand  a  stock  of  replies  fitting  any  question, 
and  another  whose  mental  machinery  worked 
so  slowly  as  to  lead  look€rs-on  to  believe  it  at 
a  standstill ;  but  who,  after  a  time,  would  pro- 
duce from  depths  of  thought  an  answer  so  sat- 
isfactory as  to  make  the  same  people  wonder 
whether  she  had  not  arrived  at  it  by  mis- 
take. 

And  it  was  the  last  of  these  who  wislied  to 
keep  the  chimes  going,  in  accordance  with  the 
title  of  the  book  you  -are  now  engaged  in 
reading. 

It  was  the  Sunday  before  Christmas,  and  a 
Christmas  whereof  the  cold  and  frost  had  a 
sting  in  it,  somewhat  like   the  small   sharp 


THE   MESSAGE.  11 

stone  by  treacherous  and  unprincipled  boys 
concealed  in  snowballs,  which  rouses  the  fight- 
ing element  in  the  assailed.  I  sometimes  wish 
that  m^ny  who  sigh  for  "  nice  old-fashioned 
Christmases,"  such  as  very  strong  people  call 
those  of  keenest  frost  and  snow,  might  try  the 
experiment  of  spending  theirs  at  Winthrop, 
situated  near  the  East  coast,  and  about  a  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  from  the  fens.  West-country 
people  know  but  little  of  the  matter.  The 
South  and  West  winds  seem  to  go  for  change 
of  air  on  their  own  account  to  that  side  of  the 
island  for  the  winter  months ;  and  the  Gulf 
stream  warms  it  by  hot  water,  to  which  accom- 
modation there  is  the  satisfactory  addition  that 
no  water-rate  collector  will  claim  payment  for 
the  same ;  and  rich  children  open  the  Supple- 
ment of  the  "  Illustrated  London  News  "  on 
the  Saturday  before  Christmas,  and  poor  chil- 
dren look  at  its  out-spread  pictures  in  the  shop 
windows,  and  wish  themselves  the  boy  with  the 
red  comforter  who  is  bringing  home  holly  in 
his  cart,  or  the  girls  muffled  up  in  family 
shawls,  on  their  way  to  sing   carols  at.  the 


12  THE   MESSAGE. 

Squire's,  little  remembering  that  to  the  poor 
and  the  old  and  the  sickly  the  Christmas  mes- 
sage, if  borne  on  the  keen  breath  of  the  East 
wind,  is  often  followed  by  another  message 
from  regions  colder  and  icier  still, 

I  remember  a  delightful  passage  in  the  Geog- 
raphy book  from  which  we  learnt  in  our  youth, 
wherein,  amid  statements  of  latitude  and  lon- 
gitude, and  names  of  chief  towns,  together 
with  the  amount  of  their  exports  and  imports, 
the  author  had  in  a  moment  of  weakness 
allowed  himself  to  run  into  two  ox  three  lines 
of  familiar  description.  And  in  these  we  were 
told  how  the  Norway  and  Lapland  women  skate 
along  frozen  rivers  to  market,  and  how  at 
those  very  markets,  all  fluids  being  congealed 
by  means  of  the  cold,  milk  is  sold  in  blocks 
and  by  the  pound.  I  remember  wondering 
that  the  great  Mr.  Pinnock,  all  of  whose  learn- 
ing seemed  to  break  out  in  catechisms  for  other 
people,  instead  of  his  being  satisfied  with  keep- 
ing it  to  himself,  and  who  as  a  matter  of  duty 
excluded  from  those  catechismal  books  with 
grave   and   gray  covers   everything  that  bor- 


THE    MESSAGE.  13 

dered  on  the  enlivening,  or  that  might  lead  us 
to  imagine  towns  and  places  as  anything  but 
dots  on  the  map,  should  have  given  us  such 
interesting  information ;  and  I  felt  it  scarcely 
honorable  when  Saturday  —  in  school-rooms 
commonly  called  repetition-day  —  came  round, 
*  to-  allow  the  bit  about  Lapland  to  count  in  my 
lessons  as  of  the  same,  value  as  exports  and 
imports.  Of  course  I  wished  I  could  skate  to 
market,  and  invite  my  brothers  to  share  a  slice 
of  milk  ;  and  believed  that  it  was  only  Ijccause 
those  in  authority  over  us  were  old  and  had 
no  enterprise  in  their  dispositions  that  they 
met  my  desires  with  the  assurance  that  I 
should  be  very  thankful  to  be  back  again  where 
I  was. 

"  But  then,"  as  we  agreed  afterwards, 
"  we're  always  assured  that  Ave  should  be  bet- 
ter off  as  we  are  than  in  being  anything  else, 
and  should  be  told  the  same  even  if  we  wished 
for  gold  watches,  or  to  live  in  Swiss  cottages 
on  mountains,  and  hunt  chamois,  or  to  go  and 
discover  new  worids  like  Columlnis,  or  any- 
thing different  from  lessons."     So  we  rejected 


14  THE  MESSAGE. 

our  counsel,  and  wished  still  for  Lapland,  and 
milk  by  the  pound. 

Which  brings  me  back  to  my  statement  — 
an  echo  of  the  once  discarded  testimony  of 
our  more  experienced  elders  —  that  West- 
country  people,  wishing  for  a  real  sharp  old- 
fashioned  Christmas,  may  travel  to  it  by  taking 
a  ticket  for  Winthrop,  in  East  Norfolk,  and 
will  in  like  manner  find  their  first  position 
the  best.  At  least,  they  might  so  have  done 
in  the  winter  of  which  I  am  writing,  and  in 
which  Mrs.  Estridge's  girls  were  coming  down 
the  Rectory  Avenue  as  already  mentioned. 

I  have  said  that  they  were  girls  very  much 
of  the  usual  description ;  and  their  conversa- 
tion, as  they  grouped  and  regrouped  them- 
selves, was  for  the  most  part  such  as  any 
dozen  of  country  maidens,  after  an  hour's 
intercourse  with  one  of  the  two  ladies  of  the 
village,  might  be  expected  to  hold.  Who  had 
said  her  verses  without  a  mistake ;  and  who 
had  broken  down  in  the  duty  to  her  neighbor ; 
and  the  dress  Mrs.  Estridge  had  worn;  and 
how  she  had  asked  Jane  Morris  for  her  sailor 


THE   MESSAGE.  15 

brother ;  and  how  fortunate  Susan  had  been 
m  sitting  next  the  fire ;  and  liow  careful  the 
Rector's  lady  had  been  to  see  that  Mary  Harris 
was  wrapped  up,  and  had  hoped  her  cold 
wouldn't  be  worse  for  coming  out ;  —  these, 
and  such  topics,  were  quite  enough  for  the 
talkers,  whilst  some  true  children  of  the  Nor- 
folk soil  contented  themselves  with  walking  on 
side  by  side  with  little  or.no  remark. 

"  You'll  be  gone  next  Sunday,  Martha," 
said  one  of  the  talkers  to  a  short,  square, 
quiet-looking  girl  who  had  been  specially  no- 
ticed by  Mrs.  Estridge  as  having  attended  her 
class  for  the  last  time.  "  I  wish  I  was  going 
too.  It'd  be  summut  of  a  change.  You'll  be 
coming  back  a  lady ;  or  least  ways,  with  a 
bonnet  like  Miss  Graham's  in  church  this 
morning,  more  like  a  crown  in  a  picture-book 
than  aught  else." 

"  No,  I  won't,"  was  the  sturdy  reply.  "  I 
wouldn't  be  stared  at  for  finery  —  not  if  I  had 
a  chance." 

"I  wonder  if  you'll  meet  with  that  Miss  — 
I  forget  her  name  —  that  sent  the  message  to 


I 


16  THE  MESSAGE. 

US  all.     How  faithful  Mrs.  Estridge  gave  it 

out." 

"  I'd  know  her  again,"  was  Martha's  reply ; 
"  and  from  the  ways  of  her,  she  wouldn't  take 
it  amiss  if  I  was  to  cross  the  road  and  speak 
to  her.     I  will  if  she  comes  to  London." 

This  was  a  good  deal  for  Martha  to  say; 
and  while  it  implied  some  ignorance  of  the 
likelihood  that  two  strangers,  though  in  Lon- 
don at  the  same  time,  might  fail  to  meet  each 
other  directly,  it  betrayed  that  deep  down  in 
her  mind  the  message  to  which  her  compan- 
ion alluded  had  been  put  away  never  to  be 
lost. 

Nearly  a  year  before  the  opening  of  our 
story,  a  friend  of  Mrs.  Estridge's,  spending  a 
Sunday  at  Winthrop,  had  consented  to  share 
with  her  the  Sunday  afternoon  teaching ;  and 
the  words  that  she  had  spoken  had  often  by 
the  Rector's  wife  been  recalled  to  the  minds 
of  the  girls,  while  in  their  purport  they  had 
from  week  to  week  been  repeated.  And  on 
this  particular  afternoon  Mrs.  Estridge  had, 
before  parting,  read  to  them  a  few  lines  from 


THE    MESSAGE.  17 

a  letter  received  only  the  day  before,  of  which 
the  words  were  as  follows  :  — 

"  And  tell  your  girls  from  me  that  I  send 
them  all  good  Christmas  wishes ;  and  that 
they  must  always  keep  the  true  Christmas 
chime  ringing  in  their  hearts  —  'Thanks  be 
UNTO  God  for  His  Unspeakable  Gift.'  " 

Not  very  much  had  been  added  to  the  mes- 
sage thus  repeated  —  only  a  few  words  of 
what  the  Gift  was,  which  is  truly  the  unspeak- 
able gift  of  Christmas-tide  —  words  few  enough 
to  be  soon  forgotten  by  the  careless,  and 
enough  to  he  carried  away  with  the  message 
by  the  thoughtful,  while  Mrs.  Estridge  had 
bidden  them  think,  wlien  the  chimes  should 
ring  in  Christmas-day,  that  the  church-bells 
must  ring  in  their  heart-temples  too. 

Martha  Brooke's  home  was  on  the  very  edge 
of  the  fens,  and  to  it  she  now  returned.  A 
great  change  in  licr  life  was  to  come  in  the 
course  of  the  week  now  opening.  On  the  day 
after  Christmas-day  she  was  to  go  to  service 
in  London  ;  and  to  this  change  she  had  long 
looked  forward,  not  with  any  pa'-ticular  oxpoc- 


18  THE   MESSAGE. 

tation  of  satisfaction,  but  simply  as  that  which 
would  come  to  her  in  her  turn  as  it  had  come 
to  her  sisters  before  her. 

When  Eliza  —  the  first  to  start  forth  into 
the  unknown  whirl  of  London  life  —  had  gone, 
her  younger  sisters  had  felt  as  much  eagerness 
of  curiosity  as  in  their  quiet  way  it  was  possi- 
ble for  them  to  show.  They  wondered  how 
she  must  feel  at  the  idea  of  a  railway  journey 
in  the  new  dress  and  strong  boots  which  were 
the  results  of  so  many  savings,  and  half 
wished  their  time  for  going  out  had  arrived. 
But  Jane  had  followed  since  then  ;  and  Martha 
began  to  feel  it  such  a  matter  of  course  that 
she  should  go,  now  that  Kezia  was  old  enough 
to  take  her  place  at  home,  that  she  did  not 
allow  herself  to  think  of  her  own  departure 
as  a  matter  of  much  moment  to  any  one  but 
herself. 

For  ]\Iartha  was  not  a  girl  who  looked  for- 
ward very  carefully  from  one  day  to  another. 
She  accepted  her  life  as  she  found  it,  and  sup- 
posed that  it  was  all  right,  or  at  least  that 
what  was  wrong  in  it  couldn't  be  helped.     It 


THE   MESSAGE.  19 

was  not  pleasant  to  be  always  scolded  by  her 
mother ;  but  then  other  girls  were  scolded  too. 
Her  father  was  a  quiet  man  who  seldom  spoke, 
and  still  more  seldom  gave  any  sign  of  her 
belonging  to  him.  She  had  read  of  fathers 
who  loved,  and  even  showed  forth  love  to, 
their  children,  and  whose  hearts  were  towards 
them ;  but  then,  as  she  came  to  reflect  upon 
it,  that  was  generally  in  Joseph  and  his  breth- 
ren and  the  Prodigal  Son,  and  in  l)Ooks  which 
must  have  taken  it  from  them ;  and  as  many 
fathers  round  her  beat  and  abused  their  chil- 
dren, she  said  to  herself  that,  on  the  whole, 
she  was  well  off. 

And  such  a  conclusion  implied  a  very  great 
amount  of  thought  on  Martha's  part.  Slie 
had  never  kuown  anything  very  pleasant  in 
her  life  until  the  day  from  which  evciytliing 
that  had  since  lieen  at  all  pleasant  dated. 
Her  home  was,  on  the  whole,  more  respect- 
able than  many  by  which  it  was  surrounded. 
No  particular  wrong  or  shame  had  cast  a 
shadow  over  it,  although,  had  such  been  the 
case,  neither  father  nor  mother  would  have 


20  THE    MESSAGE, 

very  keenly  felt  such  a  shadow.  Every  one 
in  the  house  had  been  on  a  working  level. 
The  children  had  been  sent  to  school  with  a 
general  impression  that  it  would  go  into 
work  afterwards  ;  and  to  church,  with  an  idea, 
equally  vague  on  Mrs.  Brooke's  part,  that  so 
much  religion  having  been  got  through  in  the 
time  of  childhood,  it  would  be  set  to  her  and 
their  account  in  some  shape  hereafter.  She 
herself  had  seldom  been  to  church  since  she 
married.  When  there  was  a  death  in  the 
family,  she  put  a  black  ribbon  across  her 
bonnet  and  appeared  in  the  aisle  ;  and  after 
Christmas  gifts  from  the  Parsonage,  she 
"  went  to  church  for  the  blankets,"  as  slie 
expressed  it,  regarding  it  as  a  suitable  return 
compliment  to  the  clergyman ;  but  beyond 
this,  and  the  registering  of  each  new  birth 
in  a  Family  Bible,  which  action  was  regarded 
by  both  her  and  her  husband  as  a  religious 
rite,  Mrs.  Brooke's  Christianity  did  not  go. 
And  though  it  is  pleasant  to  read  of  Christian 
England,  and  of  village  piety,  and  of  rural 
virtue,  if  the  truth  were  written,  of  how  many 


THE    MESSAGE.  21 

village  homes  is  this  only  too  favorable  a 
specimen ! 

Martha's  first  gleam  of  real  individual  sun- 
shine had,  figuratively  speaking,  crossed  her 
path  on  the  day  that  Mrs.  Estridge,  newly 
arrived  at  Winthrop,  had  called  and  invited 
her  to  come  up  to  the  Rectory  on  the  Sunday 
afternoon.  Martha  could  not  at  first  realize, 
as  she  stood  at  the  wash-tub  with  hands  deep 
in  soap-suds,  that  her  appearance  would  make 
any  difference  to  the  lady  ;  but  Mrs.  Estridge, 
all  the  same,  looked  kind  and  pleasant  about 
it ;  and  Mrs.  Brooke,  after  having  first  said 
she  didn't  see  what  the  girl  was  to  get  by 
going,  was  brought  round  to  lielieve  that  she 
wouldn't  get  any  harm,  and  it  wouldn't  take 
out  of  working  time ;  and  finally  agreed  to 
allow  it. 

That  was  three  years  ago,  and  Martha  had 
seldom  absented  herself  since.  And  under- 
neath the  hard  outer  life  there  came  to  be 
very  deep  down,  and  almost  unconsciously  to 
herself,  a  swelling  of  heart,  and  a  putting 
forth  of  feelers  and  yearnings  for  a  better  and 


22  THE   MESSAGE. 

higher  life  ;  and  then  had  followed  strange 
desires  and  hopes,  and  unspoken,  unacknowl- 
edged notions  that  all  that  was  said  in  church, 
and  had  heen  read  out  at  school  when  she  was 
a  child,  might  have  something  real  in  it,  some- 
thing true,  and  living,  and  present  —  some- 
thing for  her.  It  was  as  yet  only  a  sort  of 
twilight  speculation  on  Martha's  part,  and  one 
at  first  so  strange,  that  she  had  to  take  earnest 
counsel  with  herself  before  she  could  believe 
that  such  was  the  case.  Tlie  seeds  planted  in. 
her  heart  had  their  place  so  deep  down,  that 
all  their  first  life-strength  seemed  to  be  put 
forth  underground,  and  to  expend  itself  in 
roots  and  unseen  fibres ;  and  although,  be- 
cause she  had  not  yet  grasped  visibly  to  her- 
self those  wonderful  things  to  which  her  life 
was  tending,  she  believed  herself  to  be  very 
far  from  them,  she  was  in  truth  being  num- 
bered amongst  tliose  who  hunger  and  thirst 
after  righteousness,  and  who  shall  be 'filled. 
It  was  a  cold  East  wind  that  blew  up  across 
the  fens  as  she  descended  the  slope  to  her 
own  home  on  the  Sunday  afternoon,  of  which 


THE  MESSAGE.  23 

I  have  spoken  ; — a  cold,  sarcastic  wind,  which 
however  bravely  you  might  fight  it  at  one 
corner,  met  you  with  a  keen  retort  round  the 
next,  and  made  people  who  thought  about  it 
at  all  wonder  where  it  was  originally  com- 
pounded, and  from  what  recipe  for  a  freezing- 
mixture  it  was  made  up.  And  Martha,  as  she 
stamped  sturdily  doAvn  the  frozen  road,  and 
drew  her  shawl  closely  round  her,  wondered 
whether  it  would  meet  her  like  that  in  Lon- 
don ;  and  then,  musing  on  her  London  life  to 
come,  went  over  the  words  which  had  been  in 
her  heart  ever  since  she  left  the  Rectory. 

"  I  must  keep  the  chimes  going,"  that  was 
what  the  message  said  ;  —  Thanks  be  unto 
God  for  His  unspeakable  gift.  The  Christmas 
chimes !  I  seem  to  understand  it  somewhere 
about  me,  and  not  to  get  hold  of  it  right  side 
foremost.  It'll  come  right  best  if  I  think  of 
the  unspeakable  gift  first.  The  Bible  tells  us 
"  the  gift  of  God  is  eternal  life  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord."  It's  that  eternal  life  that's 
the  Christmas  gift,  because  Jesus  Christ  was 
born  the--  to  die  instead  of  me  —  to  take  all 


24  THE   MESSAGE. 

my  punishment  for  me,  that  there  might  be 
nothing  between  me  and  heaven.  It  seems  al- 
most too  much  to  think,  that  when  He  has  so 
much  to  do,  and  all  the  angels  to  look  after, 
and  everyone  in  great  London  and  towns  to 
mind,  that  He  should  care  to  put  the  gift  right 
down  to  me  for  me  to  take  it  up.  But  then 
the  Bible  says  so.  I  wouldn't  tell  a  lie,  I 
know,  and  He  wouldn't,  much  more..  So  there 
it  is  promised ;  and  I  may  have  it,  and  I've 
asked,  and  I  will  get  it  from  Him  —  "  eternal 
life  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord."  What  a 
go(Jd  thing  it  would  be  to  have  that  for  my 
Christmas  present  this  year !  And  why 
shouldn't  I  make  quite  sure  ?  I'd  take  that 
away  with  me  into  London,  and  never  lose  it. 
If  only  I  could  understand  about  the  chimes ! 
They'll  ring  out  on  Christmas-day,  and  per- 
haps I'll  get  hold  of  the  meaning  then.  If  I 
can't,  I'll  go  up  and  ask  Mrs.  Estridge  to 
make  it  plainer,  because  I'm  so  slow.  Any- 
how, there's  something  wonderful  in  believing 
all  about  Christmas  being  something  for  now, 
as  well  as  an  old  story  about  Christ's  coming. 


THE   MESSAGE.  25 

It's  wonderful  that  I  once  never  knew  how  to 
ask  Jesus  to  come  into  my  heart  where  there's 
room  for  Him  to  live  always.  I  sometimes 
can't  believe  I'm  only  plain  Martha  Brooke, 
that's  got  to  Him  in  my  slow,  clumsy  sort  of 
fashion  for  the  unspeakable  gift,  and  hope  to 
be  getting  it  all  the  same  as  if  I  was  the 
Squire's  lady  herself.  For  it's  promised  sure 
and  fast,  and  He  bought  it  for  us ;  —  only  I 
must  try  and  make  it  out  quite  plain  —  that 
about  keeping  the  Christmas  chime  in  my 
heart  for  always. 


=<.-J^ 


CHAPTER    II. 


CHRISTMAS    AT   THE   BROOKES'    COTTAGE. 


]HE  chimes  rang  out  of  Winthrop 
church-towers  on  Christmas-dayj 
and  the  congregation  came  in  ;  the 
crisp  snow  on  the  churchyard  paths  sparkling 
and  gleaming  in  the  cold  sunshine.  All  the 
regular  attendants  were  there,  and  a  sprink- 
ling of  irregular  ones,  who  came  to  see  the 
evergreens  round  the  pillars  and  arches,  and 
to  hear  the  singing,  and  with  a  general  notion 
that  church-going  in  the  morning  was  the 
right  sort  of  prelude  to  the  Christmas  dinner 
later  on. 

The  family  from  the  great  house  were  early 
in  their  pew ;  the  Squire  himself  looking  like 
an  eml)odiment  of  Church  and    State  as  he 


CHEISTMAS    AT    THE    BROOKES'    COTTAGE,       27 

walked  up  the  aisle  with  the  important  tread 
customary  to  him  at  the  Quarter  Sessions  and 
on    other    public    occasions.      And    in    Mrs. 
Graham's  face,  which  was  wont  to  be  sharp 
and  thin,  there  appeared  a  sort  of  conscious- 
ness  that  coals  and  blankets   had   not   been 
forgotten  the  day  before ;  while  old  Mapper, 
the   clerk,   ostentatiously  preceded   her  with 
a  bright  red  comforter  round  his  neck,  which 
he  wished  her  to  understand  was  the  same 
which  had  accompanied  his  donation  of  coals 
on  the  previous  evening,  and  which  he  wore  as 
a   mark    of  respect ;   his   grandsons  figuring 
under    the    gallery   in   other   comforters,   of 
which    the    rather    washed-out    glories    pro- 
claimed   them    as    the     Christmas    gifts    of 
former  years.     And   the   young  ladies   tried 
to    appear    as    if    they    had    not    been    the 
decorators    of  the   chancel,  and   knew  noth- 
ing about  the  wreath  over  the  arch,  or  the 
"Glory  to  God  in  the  highest"   round   the 
east  window,  although  it  was  well  understood 
that  they  and  their  brothers  had  been  busy 
among  holly  and  ivy  wreaths  the  whole  of  the 


28  CHRISTMAS    AT   THE 

previous  day.  Only  little  Effie,  who  being  but 
nine  years  old,  was  not  supposed  to  be  indif- 
ferent to  her  own  share  in  the  handiwork, 
was  heard  to  whisper  to  Mr.  John :  "  And  I 
held  all  the  white  holly  for  the  G  in  '  Glory,' 
and  Mary  wouldn't  let  me  make  the  letters ; 
but  I  will  nest  Christmas ; "  for  which  re- 
mark, although  intensely  interesting  to  the 
girls  who  sat  in  the  choir  on  the  open  bench 
before  the  squire's  pew,  Effie  was  immediately 
quenched  by  an  admonitory  glance  from  her 
elder  sister. 

Then  Mrs.  Estridge  came  in  with  Harry 
and  Gracie,  and  took  her  seat  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  chancel ;  and  Effie  and  Gracie 
had  to  be  restrained  by  their  respective  guard- 
ians from  holding  telegraphic  communication 
concerning  the  glories  of  the  wreath  round 
the  arch.  And  then  Mr.  Estridii-e  came  out 
of  the  vestry,  and  the  Confession  and  the 
Prayers  were  read  ;  and  concerning  the  Child 
of  Bethlehem  all  voices  sang,  "  Thou  art  the 
King  of  Glory,  0  Christ ! "  and  all  voices 
said,  "  I  believe   in  Jesus  Christ,  our  Lord, 


BROOKES'    COTTAGE.  29 

who  sitteth  at  the  right  hand  of  God:  from 
thence  He  shall  come  again  to  judge  both  the 
quick  and  the  dead," 

I  wonder  whether  many  people  think  of 
what  they  are  saying  in  the  Creed.  In  old 
days  the  Teutonic  nobles  used  to  draw  their 
swords,  and  repeat  the  words  while  their  glit- 
tering blades  flashed  in  the  air,  to  show  that  . 
they  would  be  willing  to  fight  and  die  for  the 
faith  —  for  the  faith  in  Him  who  came  as  a 
child  into  the  world  that  He  might  die  for  us. 
I  sometimes  think,  that  though  in  England 
people  do  not  draw,  swords  from  their  sheaths 
when  they  say  the  Creed,  those  who  love  His 
name  and  who  remember  how  for  them  He  was 
crucified,  dead,  and  buried,  have  something  of 
the  fighting  spirit  ronsed  in  their  hearts  by  the 
old  old  words,  and  long  to  overcome  and  be 
set  down  with  Him  on  the  throne  of  His  glory, 

« 

even  as  He  also  overcame  and  was  set  down 
with  the  Father  on  His  throne. 

The  winter's  sun  was  shining  brightly 
through  the  stained  glass  of  the  east  window 
when  the  choir  struck  up,  "  Hark,  the  herald 


30  CHRISTMAS    AT    THE 

angels  sing ! "  "  The  unspeakable  gift," 
thought  Martha  to  herself;  "  no  wonder 
angels  brought  the  message,  and  then  couldn't 
find  any  such  words  for  it  as  '  Glory  to  God  in 
the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace,  good-will 
toward  men.'  I  like  that  '  good-will ; '  it 
seems  as  if  we  was  wanted  to  have  the  gift 
each  one."  And  Martha's  voice,  which  was 
full  and  clear,  went  out  with  a  real  joy  such 
as  nothing  particular  in  her  outward  life  had 
ever  occurred  to  call  forth,  in  the  song, 

"  Joyful  all  ye  nations  rise, 
Join  the  triumph  of  the  skies ; 
With  the  heavenly  hosts  proclaim, 
Christ  is  born  at  Bethlehem." 

She  wondered  at  her  own  happiness  as  she 
sang.  "  And  yet  I  ought  to  be  glad,"  she 
said  to  herself;  "He  came  for  me.  When 
one  thinks  of  it,  at  first  it  seems  more  natural 
that  rich  people  should  have  the  great  gifts, 
like  they  have  everything  else,  and  for  us 
poor  plain  ones  to  be  passed  over.  I  haven't 
a  grand  cloak  like  the  young  ladies  from  the 
great  house,  all  richness,  and,  taken  in  one 


BROOKES'    COTTAGE.  31 

light,  like  silk,  and  in  the  other  like  bird's 
feathers,  just  where  they  turn  soft  and  downy  ; 
and  I'm  not  pretty,  like  Mrs.  Estridge,  but 
plain  and  awkward.  But  the  unspeakable 
gift's  for  me  all  the  same  —  it  says  so  :  '  unto 
all  people  ; '  like  a  letter  directed  to  me  in  my 
own  name ;  and  it  seems  like  something  for 
always  in  one's  heart  to  remember,  '  eternal 
life  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.'  " 

Martha  did  not  know  that  the  joy-bells,  the 
true  Christmas-chimes,  were  already  ringing 
in  her  heart  as  she  sang  out  so  gladly.  She 
only  knew  that  she  was  not  left  out  of  the 
day's  rejoicing,  and  that  the  reason  why  she 
was  glad  was  because  the  Christ  born  at  Beth- 
lehem was  her  Saviour,  and  that  he  was  near 
to  her  for  ever. 

Everybody  was  wishing  everybody  else 
happy  Christmases  after  service.  Even  the 
squire,  who  by  nature  was  silent  and  did  not 
notice  people,  nodded  to  the  groups  in  the 
churchyard,  as  if  he  couldn't  do  less  on  the 
25th  of  December ;  and  Mrs.  Estridge  went 
amongst  all  her  village  friends,  shaking  hands, 


32  CHRISTMAS    AT    THE 

and  asking  after  rheumatisms  and  coughs,  and 
saying  how  cold  it  was,  and  how  she  hoped 
eveiybody  would  enjoy  themselves,  in  a 
manner  which  Martlia  admired  from  a  dis- 
tance, wondering  all  the  time  whether  she 
would  herself  come  in  for  a  greeting,  but  feel- 
ing far  too  shy  even  to  look  as  if  she  lingered 
in  expectation  of  such  distinction. 

It  came,  however  —  the  kind  word  aijd 
touch  of  the  hand  upon  her  shoulder,  and 
pleasant  smile,  which,  far  more  than  Mrs. 
Estridge  could  have  believed,  went  to  make 
her  Christmas  a  happy  day,  sending  a  little 
electric  thrill  of  pleasure  through  the  quiet 
country  girl,  for  which  she  could  hardly  ac- 
count, even  to  herself. 

"  Your  last  day  with  us,  my  child  !  I  hope 
it  will  be  a  happy  one.  But  I  shall  miss  you 
on  Sundays.  Remember  you  are  to  let  me 
know  how  you  get  on  in  London :  and, 
Martha,  Christmas  can  be  kept  in  our  hearts 
all  the  year  round,  can't  it  ?  We  must  try  to 
let  the  true  Cliristmas  chime  be  always  ring- 
ing, you  know." 


BROOKES'    COTTAGE,  33 

Ajid  then  Mrs.  Estridge  went  to  join  her 
husband,  and  there  was  a  sore  feeling  in  the 
girl's  heart  as  she  watched  her  as  far  as  the 
Rectory  Avenue ;  and  very  much  to  her  own 
surprise,  everything  round  looked  quite  dim 
in  spite  of  the  bright  sunshine  that  streamed 
down  on  the  snowy  pathways.  What  was  over 
her  ?  Martha  could  hardly  believe  that  great 
tears  were  welling  up  into  her  eyes  in  an 
unwonted  manner  as  she  recalled  the  last 
words  of  the  friend  to  whom  she  had  slowly 
and  week  by  week  been  making  the  offering 
of  true  deep  gratitude  and  affection ;  and 
then  she  tried  to  remember  how  it  had  felt 
to  have  Mrs.  Estridge's  hand  laid  on  her 
shoulder,  and  asked  herself  if  it  could  be 
possible  that  she  meant  what  she  said  about 
missing  her,  and  thought  how  she  had  finished 
with  the  words,  "  We  must  keep  the  chime 
going."  "  As  if  we  would  be  together  in 
•something,"  she  said  to  herself;  "and  I  will, 
oh,  I  will ;  I'll  try  and  re.member  always, 
always !  I  would,  if  it  was  only  for  love  of 
her,  I  would;    but  it's   more   than    that,  —  I 

2 


34  CHRISTMAS    AT   THE 

have  the  Unspeakable  Gift  given  to  me,  and 
I'll  never  forget  it  as  long  as  I  live  ! 

It  was  dinner-time  when  she  reached  home, 
and  Mrs.  Brooke  was,  with  Kezi^a's  help,  put- 
ting the  beef  and  pudding  on  the  table,  which 
had  been  in  part  supplied  from  the  great  house 
the  day  before. 

I  wonder  whether  any  but  true-born  English 
people  can  enter  into  the  full  meaning  and 
sentiment  of  Christmas  pudding,  —  the  insti- 
tution which  penetrates  into  the  humblest  cot- 
tages, into  workhouses,  and  even  into  prisons, 
in  which  last  retreat  it  is  regarded,  as  a 
general  rule,  with  much  more  respect  than 
the  law  of  the  land.  Foreigners  may  make, 
may  eat,  and  may  even  go  as  far  as  to  enjoy 
the  same  ;  but  with  a  rightly-constituted  Eng- 
lishman or  Englishwoman,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, there  belongs  to  every  mouthful 
a  sense  of  nationality,  of  hereditary  Church 
and  State  attachment,  together  with  an  infu* 
sion  of  as  much  family  feeling  as  it  is  possible 
to  muster,  all  of  whiclj  go  to  form  an  invisible 
compound,  served  up  at  the  same  time  with 


BROOKES'    COTTAGE.  35 

the  material  embodiment  of  groceries  and 
other  ingredients,  and  giving  a  flavor  and 
meaning  to  tlie  same  wliich  can  be  attained 
on  Christmas-day  only,  and  then  only  by  the 
home-born. 

Mrs.  Brooke  at  one  time  in  the  year  seemed 
able  to  look  over  the  deeply-worn  groove  of 
her  work-a-day  life,  and  to  realize,  with  a  mo- 
mentary approach  to  the  dignity  of  a  British 
matron,  her  position  as  a  wife  and  motlier 
of  a  family.  It  was  when,  with  the  only  ap- 
proach to  sentiment  which  she  was  ever  known 
to  exhibit,  she  stuck  a  sprig  of  holly,  "  to  give 
a  touch  of  feeling,"  as  she  annually  expressed 
it,  in  the  centre  of  the  pudding,  and  then  sat 
down  at  the  head  of  her  family  to  eat  it. 

Even  in  the  poor  cottage  on  the  fens  there  • 
arose,  at  the  observance  of  the  yearly  festival, 
a  remembrance  of  the  absent  members  of  the 
family.  The  Brookes  were  at  all  times  so 
slow  of  speech,  were  so  fixed  in  a  sort  of  belief 
that  what  was  to  be  was,  wdiich  thing,  in  their 
case,  happened  to  be,  from  time  to  time,  tlie 
due  exportation  into  London  service  of  one  of 


36  CHRISTMAS   AT    THE 

the  children,  that,  this  transaction  having  been 
accomplished,  little  was  said  about  the  matter ; 
unless  it  chanced  that  Mrs,  Brooke,  in  scold- 
ing the  daughters  that  remained,  Avould  finish 
up  with,  "  'Liza  now,  liur  was  good  for  sum- 
mut ;  hur  knew  how  to-  stir  round,  hur  did  ;  " 
which  generally  resulted  in  a  practical  ex- 
emplification on  her  own  part  of  what  "  stir- 
ring round "  might  be  supposed  to  signify, 
much  to  the  bewilderment  and  disturbance  of 
the  different  members  of  the  household. 

Over  the  pudding,  however,  the  father  of 
the  family,  who  had  arrived  at  au  idea  that  he 
should,  before  parting  from  her,  "  throw  out  a 
word  to  Patty,"  as  he  expressed  it  to  himself, 
concerning  her  new  start  in  the  world,  began 
to  work  tip  to  it  by  slow  degrees,  to  the  mani- 
fest approbation  of  his  wife,  who,  coarse  and 
rough-hewn  as  was  her  ordinary  life,  had,  at 
the  bottom  of  it  all,  a  certain  womanly  satis- 
faction in  any  approach  on  her  husband's  part 
to  recognitions  of  his  family  relationship  in 
partnership  with  herself. 

" 'Liza, -now,    she's    a   eating    of  pudding 


BROOKES'    COTTAGE.  37 

somewheres,  I'll  be  bound,"  was  the  paternal 
observation  which,  in  an  unwonted  manner, 
betrayed  his  remembrance  of  the  absent. 

"  It  don't  seem  only  like  two  years  since 
hur  was  away,"  continued  his  wife,  carrying 
on  the  train  of  thought.  "It  was  a  bigger 
pudding  that  year  than  this.  Mrs.  Law,  she 
takes  a  bit  off  for  every  one  as  goes ;  that's 
what  I've  minded  each  year.  There  was  a 
handful  of  raisins  less  after  'Liza  went,  and  a 
quarter  of  a  pound  less  suet  after  Jane  was 
off.  I'm  thinkin'  we'll  lose  by  Patty's  going 
next  year ;  and  if  I  can,  I'll  have  speech  with 
one  of  the  young  ladies  up  at  the  house,  and 
ask  to  know  if  it's  by  their  desires." 

From  which  remark  the  reader  will  discover 
that  Mrs.  Law  was  the  Squire's  housekeeper ; 
and  further,  that  the  charities  over  which  she 
presided  were  dispensed  not  altogether  with 
the  inconsiderateness  of  generosity  to  which 
the  seascm  of  Christmas  is  supposed  to  con- 
duce. 

"  There's  Jane,  too,"  continued  Mr.  Brooke, 
after  a  longer  silence  than  tlic   first,  during 


2i3;l  254 


38  CHRISTMAS   AT   THE 

which  second  slices  had  been  given  round; 
"  I  shoukln't  wonder  if  she  was  a  eatin'  of 
puddin'  now  at  this  very  minit ; "  in  pursuing 
which  train  of  thought  his  wife  looked  at  the 
clock,  and  observed  that  it  was  pretty  nigh 
gone  one,  whereupon  the  children  looked  at 
the  clock  too,  and  as  it  struck,  seemed  in  their 
turn  struck  with- their  father's  idea. 

He  himself  was  rising  in  spirits  in  the  un- 
usual process  of  conducting  a  family  conver- 
sation, his  habit  being  on  most  other  days  in 

* 

the  year  to  devour  hungrily  and  silently  what 
might  be  prepared  for  him  in  the  interval  of 
his  labor,  indulging  now  and  then  only  in  an 
angry  exclamation  against  his  wife,  if  his 
usual  allowance  was  wanting  in  weeks  of 
scant  wages,  or  of  other  difficulty. 

Christmas-day  was  telling  upon  him,  how- 
ever, as  in  the  bosom  of  his  family  he  gave 
vent  to  a  third  remark,  which  was  founded  on 
the  pattern  of  the  former  ones,  as  they  had 
proved  successful. 

"Patty,  now;  she'll  be  eatin'  of  puddin' 
somewheres  next  year,  you  may  depend." 


BROOKES'    COTTAGE.  39 

Martha  grew  very  red  as  she  felt  that  all 
the  eyes  round  the  table  were  beut  upon  her, 
while  her  mother,  with  a  dim  idea  that,  to- 
morrow bein^  a  working  day,  it  would  be  time 
saved  to  say  what  was  necessary  to  her  daugh- 
ter at  parting  then  and  there,  nodded  to  her 
husband,  and  then  to  Martha,  and  then  to  the 
other  children,  repeating  his  words  as  being 
what  they  might  all  take  note  of:  "Patty, 
yes,  hur'll  be  eatin'  of  puddin'  somewheres 
next  year;"  adding  the  exhortation,  "Now, 
Martha,  you  mind  that;  that's  from  father 
and  me." 

It  might  have  occurred  to  an  unenlightened 
listener  that,  regarded  as  parting  advice,  the 
remark  relating  to  Martha's  next  year's  con- 
sumption of  Christmas  pudding,  was  hardly 
such  as  practically  to  bear  with  much  force 
upon  her  future  career  ;  but  I  don't  think  that 
any  such  idea  presented  itself  to  her  or  to 
any  one  else  at  table.  On  the  contrary,  there 
was  a  certain  approach  to  maternal  dignity, 
and  even  kindliness,  in  the  words,  "  that's 
from  father  and   me,"   which,  while   it   con- 


40  CHRISTMAS   AT   THE 

vinced  Mr.  Brooke  that  he  had  offered  a  very 
original  and  well-timed  remark,  found  its  way, 
though  slowly,  to  Martha's  heart ;  while  a  sort 
of  yearning  came  over  her  towards  the  rough, 
coarse,  and  generally  loveless  home,  from 
which  on  the  next  day  she  was  to  drift  into 
an  individual  life  of  her  own. 

"  Yes,  mother,"  she  answered,  rather  hum- 
bly. 

"  Ay :  it's  all  in  that  what  your  mother 
says,"  continued  her  father,  willing  in  some 
sort  to  pay  back  his  wife's  appreciation  of  his 
former  remarks,  "  hur  said  '  moind.'  Now, 
Patty,  you  moind.  It's  what  I  says  to  Jane, 
and  to  'Liza  before  her,  when  they  was  goin'. 
And  it  won't  wear  out  afore  its  Kezia's  turn. 
You  allers  moind,  and  then,  as  I  says,  you'll 
be  moinded  of."  Whereupon  Mrs.  Brooke 
hinted  that  the  parson  himself  would  find  it 
hard  to  improve  upon  that,  and  told  Martha 
"  not  to  forget  her  bringin'  up  or  her  school- 
in' ;  "  and  when  Martha  had  said  she  wouldn't, 
added,  "  and  you  fulfil  that  sitiwation  that 
you're  summonsed  to,  and  you'll  be  like  the 


BROOKES'    COTTAGE.  41 

other  two,  never  coming  back  like  a  bad  penny 
on  our  hands." 

With  which  burst  of  feeling,  and  the  finish- 
ing up  of  the  pudding,  Martha's  exhortation 
on  leaving  the  parental  roof  ended ;  and,  in- 
deed, the  Christmas  observance  in  the  Brookes' 
house  also  found  its  close.  The  dishes  were 
put  away,  and  Mrs.  Brooke  was  heard  to 
remark  to  Kezia  "  out  at  the  back,"  that  she 
felt  most  lost  after  dinner  was  over  whenever 
Christmas-day  came,  for  that,  look  at  it  in  one 
way,  it  seemed  most  as  dull  as  Sundays  for 
work  ;  and,  look  at  it  the  other,  why,  it  seemed 
a  waste  not  to  be  settin'  to  the  washin', 
"  which  I  wouldn't  think  nothin'  before  I'd  be 
at  it  now,"  she  concluded,  "  if  it  wasn't  for 
neighbors  sayin'  as  we  couldn't  afford  to  sit 
like  gentlefolks  for  Christmas-day,  which,  after 
all,  comes  but  once  a  year." 

Martha,  meanwhile,  was  busy  upstairs  in 
packing  up  her  few  possessions,  much  as  her 
sisters  had  done  before  her.  Her  Bible  and 
Prayer-book,  given  her  at  school,  and  her 
working  clothes,  and  a  few  other  little  proper- 


• 


42  CHRISTMAS   AT   THE 

ties,  sufficient  to  form  a  bundle,  were  tied  up 
in  an  old  shawl  ready  for  the  morrow's  jour- 
ney. The  three  younger  children  looked  on 
with  a  vague  wonder  and  admiration,  while 
she  told  them  that  on  the  next  day  she  would 
be  going  away  from  them  in  the  train,  together 
with  that  identical  bundle  ;  and  then  they  ran 
off  to  play,  leaving  her  to  finish  up  her  work 
by  herself,  which  she  did,  wondering  almost 
as  much  as  they  as  to  what  it  would  feel  like, 
to  be,  for  the  first  time,  away  from  them  all, 
and  starting  life  on  her  own  account. 

And  then,  when  all  was  done,,  and  when 
Mrs.  Brooke  bad  sent  Kezia  out  ta  the  farm  to 
get  the  milk,  and  had  settled  herself  to  sleep 
in  the  one  arm-chair  by  the  fire,  Martha 
arrayed  herself  in  her  new  warm  shawl,  the 
result  of  deposits  in  Mrs.  Estridge's  clothing 
club,  and  put  on  the  brown  straw  bonnet 
which  she  had  worn  for  the  first  time  that 
morning,  and,  in  the  unwonted  leisure  of 
Christmas  afternoon,  took  the  road  leading  up 
to  the  church.  A  settled  purpose  was  in  her 
mind,  —  the  accomplishment  of  a  plan  which 


BROOKES'    COTTAGE.  43 

she  had  formed  for  this  last  day  at  home,  after 
the  Bible  class  of  the  previous  Sunday,  —  and, 
in  the  freezing  cold  of  approaching  dusk,  she 
drew  her  shawl  round  her  closely,  and  tried  to 
think  out  with  something  of  distinctness,  the 
feelings  which  were  deep  down  in  her  heart, 
but  for  which,  even  to  herself,  she  could  not 
find  expression.  If  she  could  have  known  it, 
they  were  gentle  and  tender  ones,  —  gentler 
and  tenderer  than  might  naturally  have  been 
nurtured  in  a  hard,  religionless  home,  —  feel- 
ings which  had  come  to  her  with  the  longing 
for  the  higher  life  towards  which  her  heart 
had  been  drawn  by  kindly  words  and  heav- 
enly influences,  —  longing,  upward-tending 
thoughts,  which  now  were  beginning  to  raise 
themselves  with  new,  vigorous  shoots  above 
the  coarse  soil  of  an  ignorant  and  rough  every- 
day life,  filling  her  with  a  strange  sense  of 
purpose,  and  meaning,  and  hopefulness,  such 
as  she  had  never,  until  lately,  understood  or 
imagined. 

The  slope  up  to  Winthrop  Church  was  the 
prettiest  bit  of  the  village;  and  the  church- 


44  CHRISTMAS    AT   THE 

yard  trees  were  looked  upon  with  some  pride 
by  the  inhabitants.  Through  the  gate  Martha 
took  her  way,  and  down  the  path  to  the  fur- 
thest end  of  the  enclosure ;  and  then  she 
stopped  by  a  grave  with  a  small  head-stone, 
on  which  the  inscription  was  but  of  recent 
date.  The  words  engraved  were  only 
Mary  Lee,  died  18 — .  Aged  15. 
"  I'm  glad  to  come  here,"  said  Martha  to 
herself,  as  she  stood  by  the  tomb  of  a  young 
girl  who  had  died  some  months  before,  and 
whom  she  had  cared  for  as  for  few  other  vil- 
lage companions ;  "  I  helped  to  carry  her  to 
the  grave  here,  and  I'll  think  of  her  often 
when  I'm  gone  away.  She  wasn't  long  ill,  but 
she  had  the  Unspeakable  Gift.  I  mind  how 
she  said  before  she  died  that  she  wasn't  feared 
to  die,  because  He  had  died  for  her,  and  that 
He  was  everything  she  wanted.  I  wonder 
whether  there  are  chimes  up  in  heaven  to  ring 
at  Christmas-time.  I  wonder  whether  Mary's 
listening  to  them.  I  think  if  I  was  to  go  to 
heaven,  I'd  like  to  keep  Christmas  even  more 
than  down  here  ;  seeing  Him  who  came  to  be 


BKOOKES'    COTTAGE.  45 

a  child,  that  He  might  give  His  life  for  ours. 
But,  somehow,  it  seems  a  long  way  off ;  some- 
thing so  far  out  of  one's  way.  Work,  and 
being  followed  round  by  mother,  and  washing 
up,  and  all,  seems  realer  than  all  about  Him. 
But  then,  death's  as  true  as  all  that.  Mary 
died  —  "  and  at  this  point  Martha  found  her- 
self touching  the  grave-stone,  as  if  to  assure 
herself  that  it  was  there,  telling  a  true  tale  — 
"  Mary  died,  and  then  she  found  it  all  as  it's 
written  for  us,  about  the  golden  streets,  and 
harpers  with  their  harps,  and  the  tree  of  life, 
and  all ;  and  it  was  having  the  Unspeakable 
Gift  that  took  her  safe  there ;  the  great  gift 
of  Jesus  Christ.  I  think  I'm  rather  glad  some 
one  I  know  has  gone  over  there,  because  of  it. 
It  makes  me  feel  more  as  if  it  was  the  only 
thing  that's  to  last  always.  Yes.  I'm  glad 
Mary's  there  ;  and  I'll  know  her  when  I've  got 
to  thank  Him  for  it  all.  It  feels  like  a  sort 
of  showing  out  that  it's  all  true  what  we're 
told  of,  —  dying  and  heaven,  —  to  have  her 
gone  where  there's  no  trouble  nor  worry,  nor 
being  scolded  for  anythmg  any  more." 


46  CHRISTMAS    AT   THE 

With  which  thoughts  Martha  turned  to  look 
round  again  over  the  village  churchyard,  still 
with  the  intense  stillness  of  the  winter  frost 
and  winter  twilight.  The  damps  had  risen 
from  the  marshy  grounds  below  the  slope  on 
which  she  stood,  and  the  firm  road  through 
the  fens,  stretching  on  out  of  sight,  looked 
like  the  old  Bible  pictures  of  the  pathway  of 
the  children  of  Israel  through  the  cloud  and 
the  sea.  And  high  above  the  mists  and  va- 
pors, which  came  up  like  waves  from  the  lower 
flats,  a  clear  crescent  moon  was  shining,  and 
sentinel  stars  were  standing  out  like  watchers 
in  the  sky ;  and  it  seemed  to  Martha  as  if  the 
shadows  of  the  trees,  with  the  rime  upon  their 
branches,  and  the  deeper  shadows  of  the 
church,  were  in  some  sort  thrown  over  the 
graves  as  a  night-covering  for  those  sleeping 
underneath ;  sleeping  as  peacefully  as  little 
Mary  Lee,  whom  she  would  never  see  again. 

And  just  then,  as  for  a  last  greeting  on  the 
Christmas  afternoon,  the  chimes  rang  out 
through  the  stillness.  Martha  could  not  tell 
herself  why  she  liked  so  much  to  hear  them, 


BROOKES'    COTTAGE.  47 

or  why  she  was  .glad  that  she  had  been  on  the 
the  other  side  of  the  tower  from  that  by  which 
the  bell-ringers  entered,  so  that  they  seemed 
to  her  piore  like  voices  from  above  than  the 
result  of  efforts  within. 

"  The  chimes !  they're  to  remind  me  once 
more  of  the  Unspeakable  Gift  I  "  she  said  to 
herself.  "  I  wonder  how  it  goes.  One,  two, 
three,  four,  five.  No,  it  won't  do  like  that ;  " 
and  in  vain  she  tried  to  set  the  words  to  the^ 
music  of  Winthrop  peal.  But  suddenly,  after- 
a  pause,  the  ringers  changed  their  chime. 
Slowly  the  first  four  bells  sounded,  and  then 
the  full  cadence :  then  again  four ;  then  once 
more  the  clear  octave  of  notes,  ringing,  ring- 
ing out  the  reminder,  far  and  near,  that  the 
Child  of  Bethlehem  is  Christ  the  Lord. 

"  That's  it,"  said  Martha,  joyfully  ;  "  I've 
got  it  now.     I'll  be  able  to  keep  them  in  my 
heart  just  as  the  message  said :  — 
" '  Thanks  be  to  God 

" '  For  his  unspeakable  —  Gift.' 
■   " '  Thanks  be  to  God :  For  His  unspeakable 
—  Gift.'     I'll  try  and  mind  about  it  when  I'm 


48      CHRISTMAS    AT   THE    BROOKES'    COTTAGE. 

tired  or  put  out.  I'll  try  and  mind  about  it 
down  at  London  that's  so  big.  I'll  try  and 
mind  about  it  Sundays  and  work-a-days,  and 
Christmas  days  too,  —  that  the  great  Gift  was 
given  for  me  ;  and  so  I've  never  cause  to  care 
for  anything  that's  to  worry  or  vex  me,  unless 
it's  losing  hold  of  that ;  and  I  don't  think 
He'll  let  me  lose  hold  of  it.  I'll  try  and  live 
like  it.  I  want  to  give  my  life  back  to  Him 
Vho  gave  Himself  for  me ;  and  I'll  try,  0  I 
•  will  try  to  set  the  bells  ringing  in  my  heart ; 
and  whatever  comes,  it  won't  seem  very  bad 
if  only  I  can  keep  the  Christmas  chime 
going." 

And  then  Martha  once  more  looked  over  to 
the  misty  fens,  and  gave  a  farewell  glance  to 
the  mound  beneath  which  Mary  Lee  was  sleep- 
ing ;  and  under  the  shadow  of  the  church 
found  her  path  among  the  graves,  and  won- 
dered, as  she  went  on  her  way  home,  that  she 
should  have  understood  so  well  what  Winthrop 
chimes  had  to  say  to  her. 


CHAPTER  III. 


FIRST   CLASS    AND    THIRD    CLASS. 


JEOPLE  who  travel  from  city  to  city 
first  class  express,  gain  in  time, 
gain  in  importance,  and  probably 
gain  in  comfort ;  but  I  am  inclined  to  believe 
that  in  some  respects  they  have  not  altogether 
the  advantage  over  slower  travellers.  They 
have  opportunities,  indeed,  of  reflection  con- 
cerning the  hurry  and  bustle  of  this  sublunary 
life  during  the  brief  space  of  time  which  may 
intervene  between  their  settling  themselves  in 
corner  seats  with  newspaper,  magazine,  and 
sandwiches  in  store,  and  the  moment  of  }junc- 
tual  and  loudly-signalled  departure.  They 
may  discover  objects  not  devoid  of  interest  in 

i 


50  FIRST    CLASS   AND    THIED    CLASS. 

anxious  travellers  unable  to  reconcile  them- 
selves to  enforced  separation  from  some  cher- 
ished portmanteau  or  box  of  fragile  ware, 
between  which  and  their  owners  there  is  this 
much  in  common  that  the  last,  like  their 
boxes,  seem  to  have  "  Care :  this  side  ?/;?," 
written  visibly  on  their  brows.  They  may 
find  food  for  meditation  in  watching  newly- 
married  couples  taking  possession  of  coupes, 
and  people  barely  in  time  rushing  into  wrong 
carriages  and  being  transferred  at  the  last 
moment  to  their  proper  places  by  watchful 
officials,  and  in  manifold  other  transactions, 
suggestive  of  stir,  and  hurry,  and  change,  and 
busy  life.  And,  if  n?)t  wholly  engrossed  in 
anxieties  concerning  their  own  personal  well- 
being,  they  may  discern  suggestive  themes 
for  thought  in  the  various  callings  aiid  nation- 
alities represented  by  the  Bishop,  and  the 
doctor,  and  the  man  of  business,  and  the 
commercial  traveller,  and  the  native  servant, 
and  the  various  other  personages  collected 
and  jostled  together  in  a  confusion  which 
is  only  brought  to  an  orderly  solution  by  the 
magic  words,  "  Take  your  seats." 


FIEST  CLASS   AND   THIRD   CLASS.  51 

But  to  my  mind  the  more  leisurely  traveller 
is  often  the  gainer,  who,  all  things  being  esti- 
mated by  comparison,  saunters  through  the 
counties,  stopping  at  village  stations,  and  at 
way-side  gates,  and  at  obscure  hamlets,  with 
names  so  little  known,  as  not  even  to  be 
counted  worthy  of  publication,  being  supposed 
to  interest  only  natives  of  the  soil.  The 
nineteenth  century,  and  gas,  and  steam,  and 
machinery,  and  radical  reform  have  not  yet 
erased  all  English  country  life.  The  great 
red-brick  creeper,  which  branches  forth  from 
the  large  towns,  and,  in  suburltan  lines  of 
building,  calling  themselves  Prospect  Villas 
and  Pleasant  Rows,  invades  quiet  meadow 
tracts,  never  more  to  be  named  as  "  the 
country,-"  has  not  yet  overspread  the  whole  of 
our  land.  And  still,  even  where  the  railway 
echoes  are  heard  as  accustomed  sounds,  Eng- 
lish village  life  is  going  on,  and  men  and 
women  are  living  out  their  histories  under  the 
shadow  of  the  church  where  they  were  chris- 
tened, only  shaking  their  heads  over  the  next 
generation,  and  saying  that  "  changes  have 
come  up  since  the  old  days,  I  believe  you." 


52  FIRST   CLASS   AND   THIRD   CLASS. 

And  little  home  pictures  of  country  life, 
•whereof  the  way-side  platform  with  its  few 
accessories  of  embellishment  or  comfort  is  the 
groundwork,  may  from  time  to  time  be  seen 
by  the  passing  traveller,  who,  possibly,  at 
many  previous  stations  has  heard  no  disturb- 
ance oi  the  stillness  beyond  the  solitary  foot- 
step of  the  guard  and  the  subdued  panting  of 
the  engine ;  —  pictures  sometimes  of  parting, 
sometimes  of  greeting,  but  all  more  or  less 
invested  with  an  increase  of  interest  and  in- 
dividuality by  reason  of  the  quiet  and  the 
loneliness  of  the  framework  in  which  they 
are  set. 

Here  the  nobleman's  family  is  seen  to 
emerge  from  first-class  carriages  ;  and  a  brief 
bustle  of  waiting  servants,  and  loudly-claimed 
luggage,  breaks  the  monotony  of  the  journey ; 
while  lookers-on,  who  may  happen  to  be  well 
informed  concerning  the  neighborhood,  point 
out  to  more  ignorant  fellow-travellers  the  di- 
rection of  the  country-seat  towards  which  the 
coronetted  carriage  is  already  turning,  com- 
monly finishing  up  with   a  brief  biography 


FIRST   CLASS   AND   THIRD   CLASS.  53 

of  Lord  De  Blank  —  "  not  much  good  in  the 
county  —  mostly  abroad  ;  but  finer  timber  not 
to  be  seen  in  England,  sir;  and  they  do  say 
that  the  young  lord  will  take  to  the  family 
place  —  he  that  married  Sir  John  Acres' 
daughter  in  the  next  county  —  a  fine  place, 
too,  Acres'  Park,  and  Sir  John  knows  some- 
thing of  farming,  and  goes  for  a  pretty  tight 
landlord.  There,  you  may  see  the  Blankhurst 
chimneys  over  behind  those  trees !  "  And 
then  the  train  goes  on  its  way,  and  other 
woods  and  meadows  are  skirted  in  its  course, 
and  the  Blankhurst  parenthesis  in  the  after- 
noon journey  is  left  behind. 

And  sometimes  may  be  seen  a  life-parting, 
and  sometimes  a  greeting  of  the  soldier  re- 
turned from  long  absence.  And  sometimes 
Mary  going  to  her  first  place  at  the  country 
parsonage,  is  met  by  a  strange  fellow-servant, 
who  "  supposes  she  is  the  young  person  as  is 
expected,"  and  who,  finding  that  she  is, 
adopts  her  bonnet-box,  while  Mary,  claims  the 
heavy  one  from  the  luggage-van.  And  some- 
times the  Squire  returning  from  Quarter  Ses- 


64        .      FIRST   CLASS   AND   THIRD   CLASS. 

sions,  or  from  a  day's  'sport  over  the  stubble, 
and  sometimes  the  town  young  lady  friend 
met  with  the  pony-carriage  by  her  country 
young  lady  friend,  and  "the  cart  will  come 
down  for  your  boxes,  dear,"  are  the  foremost 
figures  in  the  little  home  histories  for  a  few 
moments  acted  out  before  the  eyes  of  passing 
travellers.  And  now  and  then  chimes  from  a 
village  spire,  or  the  sound  of  the  afternoon 
organ  practice  from  the  church,  or  the  even- 
ing hymn  swelling  through  the  open  windows 
of  a' school,  or  the  scents  of  summer  things 
borne  up  from  cottage  gardens,  have  a  mes- 
sage for  the  passors-by  not  altogether  without 
power  to  revive  old  associations,  or  to  waken 
up  quiet  songs  without  words  in  secret  heart- 
chambers,  if  the  world's  care  and  work  have 
not  done  their  part  in  silencing  its  inner 
music. 

The  point  at  which  the  narrow  stream  of 
Winthrop  life  joined  the  tide  of  world  history 
and  nineteenth  century  civilization  was  a  way- 
side platform  at  which  only  slow  trains  con- 
descended  to   stop ;    and    there,   some   time 


FIRST    CLASS    AND    THIRD    CLASS.  55 

before  the  morning  parliamentary  had  become 
due,  Martha  Brooke  might  have  been  seen, 
the  day  after  Christmas,  escorted  by  her  sister 
Kezia,  and  grasping  the  bundle  of  which  men- 
.  tion  has  been  already  made,  with  a  sort  of 
unspoken  conviction  that  all  she  had  now  to 
do  was  to  keep  a  firm  hold  on  the  properties 
therein  contained. 

On  occasion  of  the  first  launch  of  a  daughter 
into  service,  two  years  before,  both  the  father 
and  mother  of  the  Brooke  family  had  come  up 
to  Winthrop  gate,  as  they  expressed  it,  "to 
see  the  last  of  'Liza ; "  and  to  the  said  Eliza 
there  had  come  a  certain  dignity  and  sense  of 
independence,  as  she  kissed  the  children,  and 
promised  to  bring  them  things  when  she  came 
to  see  them  again.  But  the  family  ceremonial 
had  been  conducted  with  less  importance  when 
Jane  had  followed  in  her  sister's  track  —  her 
father  having  said  that  he  "  saw  no  good  in 
having  to  make  up  after  hours  along  of  the 
girl's  going  off,  which  mother  could  see  -to 
better  than  him."  Martha's  departure  at  the 
Christmas-tide  of  which  we  are  writing  was 


56  FIRST   CLASS    AND    THIRD    CLASS. 

even  less  honored  in  its  accompaniments,  the 
thing  having  to  a  certain  extent  become  com- 
mon in  the  family ;  so  that  ujDon  her  sister 
alone  devolved  the  duty  of  speeding  her  on 
her  way,  Mrs.  Brooke  having  declared,  over 
her  wash-tub,  that  "  'twould  take  a  deal  to 
make  up  all  the  time  wasted  in  keeping 
Christmas,  special  now  that  they'd  be  a  hand 
short  without  Patty,  when  she  was  gone." 

To  the  same  platform  there  drove  up,  just 
before  the  arrival  of  the  expected  train,  the 
carriage  from  the  great  house  ;  and  the  sisters, 
looking  on,  did  not  take  long  to  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  Miss  Graham  was  also  about 
to  start  on  her  travels. 

There  was  what  seemed  to  them  an  endless 
quantity  of  luggage,  with  the  amount  of  Ijrass 
and  leather  displayed  in  the  construction 
thereof  which  is  generally  to  be  regarded  as 
an  outward  sign  and  symbol  of  the  excellence 
of  the  contents.  And  then  many  charges  were 
given  to  Green,  the  lady's  maid,  as  to  her 
care  of  Miss  Dora  during  her  absence.  "  And 
you'll  be  sure  to  see  that  she  wraps  up  going 


FIKST    CLASS     AND    THIRD    CLASS. 


/'.    50. 


FIRST    CLASS   AND    THIRD    CLASS.  57 

out  driving,"  Martha  heard  Mrs.  Graham  say, 
as  the  train  drew  up  ;  and  then  furs  and  cloaks, 
and  a  hot-water  footstool,  were  by  the  man- 
servant placed  in  a  coraer  seat,  and  the  Squire 
was  seen  to  slip  something  into  the  guard's 
palm  as  he  promised  to  mind  and  see  after 
the  young  lady,  who,  meantime,  looked  very 
bright  and  merry  as  she  started  off  for  a 
month  of  Christmas  gaieties,  and  laughingly 
told  her  parents  not  to  mourn  for  her  absence. 
Then  once  more  Green,  who  was  made  to  sit 
opposite  to  her,  was  exhorted  to  take  care  of 
her  young  mistress ;  and  her  father,  as  the 
whistle  somided,  was  heard  to  say,  "  The  car- 
riage will  be  waiting  for  you  at  Shoreditch  ;  " 
and  then,  Martha  having  been  deposited  in 
her  place,  and  a  brief  kiss  having  sealed  the 
parting  of  the  sisters,  the  train  glided  away, 
and  Winthrop  tower  faded  in  the  distance,  and 
the  chapter  of  her  village  life  was  closed  and 
over  —  not  a  very  happy  life  —  by  no  means  a 
gentle  or  tender  one  —  but  still  life  with  a 
home  in  it,  and  with  a  rough  sort  of  family 
love  belonging  to  it,  the  remembrance  of  which 


58  FIRST   CLASS   AND   THIRD   CLASS. 

brought  a  swelling  into  Martha's  heart,  while 
she  wondered  in  what  sort  of  a  place  she  would 
sleep  that  night. 

"  Eeckon  there's  a  deal  of  store  set  by  some 
one  over  there,"  was  the  first  remark  she 
heard  from  a  laboring  man  who  pointed  back- 
wards with  his  thumb  towards  the  carriage 
occupied  by  Miss  Graham  and  her  maid.  And 
Martha,  hai-ing  no  reason  to  think  to  the  con- 
trary, reckoned  that  there  was. 

"  Comes  to  the  same  thing  in  the  end," 
observed  her  companion,  with  some  conscious 
philosophy  ;  adding,  after  a  pause,  "  First 
class  or  third,  it's  all  one  at  the  end  —  when 
the  journey's  over." 

Which  remark  set  Martha,  who  was  on  her 
first  journey,  thinking  with  much  energy,  as 
of  late  had  been  her  wont. 

Has  the  reader  heard  of  a  certain  cloth 
called  mungo  ?  Not  a  superfine  or  even  a 
showy  product  of  northern  looms  or  steam- 
mills,  but  a  coarse  and  strong  material  which, 
because  it  cannot  be  called  fine,  styles  itself 
serviceable.     It  may  be  that,  long  before  the 


FIBST  GLASS  AND   THIED   CLASS.  59 

close  of  this  century,  all  remembrance  of  the 
origin  of  its  name  will  have  passed  away  ;  and 
therefore,  reminded  of  the  same  by  a  sympa- 
thetic interest  in  the  workings  of  Martha 
Brooke's  mind,  we  are  willing  here  to  make 
mention  thereof. 

Not,  as  at  first  might  appear  probable,  is 
reference  in  anywise  intended  to  the  celebrated 
African  explorer  who  was  indebted  to  his  god- 
fathers and  godmothers  for  a  Christian  name 
not  commonly  to'  be  found  in  baptismal  regis- 
ters ;  but  to  a  circumstance  attending  the 
production  before  a  Lancashire  master  manu- 
facturer of  coarse  shreds  of  old  cloth,  carpet, 
and  other  woollen  textures,  with  a  protest  to 
the  effect  that  they  were  too  rough  and  value- 
less to  be  worked  up  into  a  new  cloth. 

"  They  wunna  go,"  said  the  foreman,  dis- 
couragingly. 

"  But  they  mun  g'o,'"  replied  the  master. 
And  hence  mungo  cloth. 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  all  round 
us,  if  only  we  might  take  note  of  the  matter, 
mind-machinery,  possibly  rough  and  slow  in 


60  FIRST   CLASS   AND   THIRD   CLASS. 

its  operations,  is  working  up  out  of  imperfect 
notions  and  common  observations,  and  out-of- 
the-way  ideas,  a  web  of  home-spun  thought 
and  feeling,  not  of  tlie  book  or  essay  descrip- 
tion, nor  of  the  finer  samples  displayed  from 
pulpit  or  platform,  but  of  an  every-day  use, 
and  well  suited  for  the  wear  and  tear  of  a 
rough  and  homely  life  —  a  texture  which, 
woven  on  the  hidden  loom  of  a  conscious,  if 
ordinary,  experience,  does  not  always  result 
in  being  either  coarse  or  commonplace. 

Martha's  mental  powers  had,  as  we  have  al- 
ready observed,  only  of  late  been  roused  from 
inactivity  to  action.  She  had  herself  been 
but  a  working  machine  —  a  washing,  scrub- 
bing, and  little-noticed  country  girl,  to  whom 
few  ideas  came  beyond  the  round  of  her  every- 
day work.  And  the  entrance  of  the  Word 
which  giveth  understanding  unto  the  simple 
had  set  so  many  new  thoughts,  so  many  won- 
derful bright  glimpses  of  fresh  truth  revolving 
in  her  mind,  and  arranging  themselves  as  if 
to  be  wrought  out  into  some  settled  scheme, 
and  plain  and  tangible  web  of  feeling  and  Ix^ 


FIRST   CLASS   AND   THIRD   CLASS.  61 

lief,  that  she  found  herself  constantly  occupied 
in  the  determined  production  for  her  own 
satisfaction  of  this  private  mungo,  all,  as  soon 
as  spun,  laid  up  in  mental  store-chambers  pre- 
viously little  used,  with  a  sort  of  surprise  that 
there  should  be  s*o  many  things  seen  and  un- 
seen around  her,  concerning  which  it  behoved 
her  to  meditate  and  take  concern. 

And  now,  as  through  the  Norfolk  flats  the 
train  made  its  ways,  much  of  this  work  was  in 
process  of  being  carried  on.  Home  remem- 
brances, and  wonderings  concerning  the  now 
impending  future  "  down  at  London,"  and 
thoughts  of  Mrs.  Estridge's  pleasant  face  and 
kindly  voice,  and  curious  observations  con- 
cerning the  new  sensations  of  real  travelling, 
were  so  much  raw  material  for  Martha's  men- 
tal "home-spun;"  and  intermixed  with  it  all 
was  a  longing  desire  to  let  her  life  —  the  new 
chapter  of  which  was  now  beginning  —  be  in 
some  sort  a  return  for  the  Life  once  given  for 
her,  and  a  dim  idea  that  things  here  in  general 
were  like  a  journey,  and  that  at  last  it  will  not 
much  matter  whether  we  were  rich  or  poor, 


62  FIRST   CLASS   AND   THIRD   CLASS. 

first-class  or  third-class  passengers  —  if  only 
we  come  to  the  right  end  and  the  true  home. 

Thus  Martha  went  on  her  way ;  and  gazed 
out  at  Ipswich  steeples  and  towers,  wondering 
that  there  should  be  so  many  of  them,  and 
making  sure  that  she  was  nof  passing  London 
by  mistake  by  inquiring  from  her  fellow-pas- 
sengers concerning  the  large  station,  who 
laughed  at  her  in  a  good-natured  fashion,  and 
supposed  she  was  new  to  that  line  —  which 
was  indeed '  the  truth.  And,  just  about  the 
time  that  Miss  Graham,  in  her  corner  of  the 
train,  had  recourse  to  a  nice  little  luncheon 
of  cold  pheasant,  and.  plum-cake,  and  claret, 
Martha  bethought  her  of  finding  occupation  of 
the  same  sort,  and  enjoyed  her-dinner  of  bread 
and  cheese  and  apples,  which  Kezia  had  put 
up  for  her  before  she  left  home. 

The  Eastern  Counties  line  from  Winthrop 
to  London  has  not  the  merit  of  being  at  any 
point  particularly  attractive.  On  the  contrary, 
an  observant  traveller  might  very  generally  be 
led  to  suppose  it  a  sort  of  advertising  medium 
along  which,  during  many  months  of  the  year, 


FIRST  CLASS   AND   THIRD   CLASS.  63 

samples  of  British  fog  of  various  thickness  are 
hung  out  on  approbation,  and  for  general  inspec- 
tion. First  come  the  damps  from  the  Norfolk 
fens  —  Martha's  native  commodity  ;  then  the 
mists  from  the  Orwell,  thick  and  steamy  when 
the  tide  is  out ;  and  later,  vapors,  more  or  less 
dense,  from  the  Essex  marshes,  hanging  like 
draperies  over  the  telegraph  wires,  and  block- 
ing out  all  scenery  beyond,  until  the  gradual 
entrance  within  the  regions  of  genuine  Lon- 
don fog,  of  texture  more  closely  woven,  and 
altogether  with  a  great  deal  more  body  in  it. 
And  when,  through  the  darkness  of  the  winter 
afternoon,  the  train  threaded  its  way  to  the 
platform  of  Bishopsgate  Street,  and  Martha  was 
told  that  there  she  was  at  last,  she  grasped 
her  bundle  with  a  feeling  of  companionship  in 
its  possession,  and  got  out  on  to  the  platform, 
realizing  a  sensation  of  bewilderment  and  for- 
lornness  which  momentarily  increased  with 
her  first  experiences  of  loneliness  in  a  crowd. 
The  only  thing  that  looked  home-like  was 
Miss  Graham's  face,  as  she  stood  chatting  to 
a  lady  and  gentleman  who  had  come  to  meet 


64  FIRST   CLASS   AND   THIRD   CLASS. 

her,  and  to  whose  carriage  —  the  same  to 
which  the  Squire  had  referred  on  the  Win- 
throp  platform  —  her  wraps  and  lighter  ap- 
purtenances were  being  transferred  by  Green 
and  a  footman  in  attendance ;  and  Martha 
watched  her  with  as  much  interest  as  if  she 
were  a  picture  in  a  story-book,  until  she  was 
handed  into  the  carriage,  and  covered  up  with 
what  the  cottage  girl  thought  looked  like  skins 
of  wild  beasts  such  as  she  had  seen  in  a  carar 
van  that  had  once  passed  through  Winthrop, 
and,  telling  Green  to  follow  in  a  cab  with  the 
luggage,  was  driven  out  of  sight. 

"  I  wish  there  was  a  wheelbarrow,  or  some- 
thing in  my  line,  to  meet  me,"  thought  Mar- 
tha ;  at  which  moment  she  was  touched  on  the 
shoulder  by  a  respectable  middle-aged  man, 
who  inquired  whether  she  was  the  yo'ung  girl 
down  from  Norfolk  for  Mrs.  Purkiss ;  "  be- 
cause, if  you  are,"  he  added,  "  I'm  her 
husband,  come  on  purpose  to  meet  you." 
Whereupon  Martha's  care  was  lightened,  and 
she  followed  him  as  he  carried  her  bundle  to 
an  omnibus  outside,  and,  having  arrived  at  a 


FIRST    CLASS    AND    THIRD    CLASS.  65 

point  of  bewilderment  beyond  which  it  was 
impossible  to  attain,  sat  in  her  place  awaiting 
what  might  happen  next,  with  a  general  hope 
that  it  would  all  come  right. 

I  believe  that  in  a  narrative  constituted 
according  to  the  orthodox  fashion,  it  would  be 
proper  here  to  say,  —  "  And  while  Martha  is 
pursuing  her  way  along  the  streets  of  the 
metropolis,  we  will  inform  our  readers  who 
Mrs.  Purkiss  is."  For  I  have  a  remembrance 
that  in  approved  story-books  of  our  childhood, 
similar  occasion  for  a  break  in  the  history 
were  with  such  pleasant  formula  made  use  of 
for  purposes  of  fresh  introductions.  "  But 
then,"  as  in  thoughtful  moments  I  was  inclined 
to  argue,  "  I  can't  see  what  the  first  })erson's 
journey  has  to  do  with  the  other  person's  his- 
tory being  explained,  because  it's  only  in  a 
story  after  all ;  "  and  therefore,  resenting  any 
contrivance  bearing  a  resemblance  of  fictitious 
unreality,  I  became  immediately  impatient  of 
the  interruption  as  being  created  and  made 
use  of  under  false  pretences. 

Nevertheless,  without  reference  to  our  Win- 

5 


66  FIRST   CLASS   AND   THIRD    CLASS. 

throp  maiden's  omnibus  drive,  and  subsequent 
walk  through  sundry  streets  under  her  con- 
ductor's protection,  I  may  here  mention  that 
Mrs.  Purkiss  was  second  cousin  to  Martha's 
mother,  and  that  having  married  many  years 
before,  and  having  "  done  well  for  herself,"  as 
her  family  expressed  it,  in  her  marriage,  she 
was  willing,  with  just  a  very  little  love  of  pat- 
ronage, mingled  with  a  great  deal  of  brisk  kind- 
liness, to  stretch  out  her  hands  to  less  fortunate 
members  of  the  family,  and,  in  Mrs.  Brooke's 
behalf,  to  act  as  a  sort  of  agent  for  getting 
her  daughters  out  in  situations.  Thus  had 
she  done  for  Eliza ;  thus  had  she  also  done  for 
Jane ;  and  thus  was  she  about  to  do  for  Mar- 
tha ;  "  and  for  the  rest,  too,  as  long  as  I  can," 
she  had  said  to  her  husband ;  "  for  there's 
always  some  more  pf  them  coming  on,  and 
though  poor  and  in  a  lowly  line,  they're  strong 
working  girls  without  show  or  nonsense,  as'll 
do  well  if  they're  put  right  at  the  first  start, 
which  I'm  glad  to  do  for  them."  - 

And  when  Martha  came  in  at  the  private 
door,  escorted  by  Mr.  Purkiss,  his  wife  gave 


FIRST   CLASS   AND   THIRD   CLASS.  67 

her  a  friendly  welcome,  and  asked  her  what 
she  thought  of  London,  and  on  receiving  her 
first  impressions  to  the  effect  that  it  was  very- 
big,  replied  that  so  she  had  thought  herself 
when  she  had  come  up  first,  thirty  years  ago  ; 
"  but  you  see,  I've  come  not  to  think  much  of 
it  now,"  she  added ;  while  Martha  wondered 
at  the  greatness  of  an  experience  which  could 
speak  or  even  think  lightly  of  so  vast  and 
fearful  a  metropolis  as  that  in  which  she  found 
herself  swallowed  up. 

And  then  she  had  a  comfortable  cup  of  tea 
in  the  back  parlor  with  her  new  friends,  and 
was  questioned  by  Mrs.  Purkiss  concerning  all 
the  members  of  her  family  in  a  kind  and  not 
too  condescending  manner,  and  heard  news  of 
her  sisters'  latest  movements, —  that  Lizzie, 
she  was  away  at  Notting-hill,  miles  and  miles 
ofif;  and  that  Jane,  she  was  with  her  family 
down  at  Bloomsbury  ;  but  "  some  day,  they'd 
get  a  holiday,  and  Martha  should  come  too, 
and  they'd  have  tea  and  buttered  toast  in  this 
very  parlor  ;  "  at  which  pleasant  little  prospect 
Mrs.  Purkiss  grew  quite  merry,  and  Martha, 


68  FIRST    CLASS    AND    THIRD    CLASS. 

strange  and  shy  as  she  felt,  brightened  into  an 
idea  that  it  would  be  a  very  high  festival 
indeed. 

"  And  I've  got  a  place  for  you,  Martha,  all 
ready,  so  you  see  you  won't  be  like  goods  on 
hand  and  spoiling  in  keeping,"  chirrupped  her 
second  cousin  once  removed,  as  she  poured  out 
another  cup  of  tea.  "  It's  a  stirring  sort  of 
place,  with  plenty  of  work,  and  you  won't 
have  the  grass  growing  under  your  feet ;  but 
then,  as  I  said  to  Mr.  Purkiss  there,  and  you 
know  he's  your  cousin  too,  after  a  fashion, 
through  me,  and  my  marrying  him  —  as  I  said 
to  him,  '  She's  had  so  much  fields  and  mead- 
ows down  at  Winthrop,  why,  she  won't  want 
to  let  the  grass  grow  here  in  London  ; ' " 
whereupon  the  whole  party  laughed  very  much, 
feeling  that  this  was,  as  it  was  intended  to  be, 
a  very  pleasant  and  amusing  view  of  the 
matter. 

"It's  Mrs.  Banks,  that  lets  in  lodgings 
down  at  Southwark,"  continued  Mrs.  Purkiss ; 
"  I  don't  know  her  ;  but  Mrs.  Johnson,  that's 
the  baker's  wife  in  John  Street  (it's  funny, 


FIRST   CLASS   AND    THIRD    CLASS.  69 

Johnson,  in  John  Street,  isn't  it  ?),  well,  she 
had  a  cousin  that  lodged  there  once,  and  heard 
a  girl  was  wanted  ;  and  through  mentioning  it 
to  me,  I  sent  word  to  say  you  was  coming  up, 
and  it'd  he  the  very  thing  for  you :  five  pounds 
a  jekr  to  begin  with,  and  everything  found, 
which  isn't  bad  for  a  first  start." 

If  Martha  had  been  told  l)y  Mrs.  Purkiss 
that  she  was  to  go  as  head  chambermaid  at 
Buckingham  Palace,  on  fifty  pounds  a  year 
board  wages,  she  would  have  Ijelieved  that  it 
was  all  right,  and  would  have  proceeded  to  her 
destination  with  a  general  hope  tliat  doing 
what  she  was  told,  and  working  hard  at  what- 
ever might  be  in  hand,  would  carry  her 
through  her  duties.  She  had  come  to  a  sort 
of  inward  conclusion  that  she  was  in  the  world 
to  be  directed  by  somebody,  and  to  work  under 
any  person  in  authority  over  her,  with  but  a 
vague  idea  of  distinctions  in  service  ;  and  she 
was  willing  to  accommodate  herself  to  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  she  might  l^e  placed  with- 
out troubling  her  mind  much  as  to  what  they 
might  be,  thus  leaving  the  morrow  to  its  own 


70  FIRST   CLASS    AND   THIRD   CLASS. 

cares  in  a  manner  which  many  wiser  persons 
find  to  be  far  less  easy  of  attainment. 

In  the  course  of  the  evening,  being  left 
alone,  Mrs.  Purkiss  informed  her  young  cousin 
that  her  husband  was  a  painter  and  glazier 
and  general  decorator.  "  You've  no  idea  what 
he  can  do,  my  dear,"  she  said ;  "  or  rather 
what  he  can't  do  that's  at  all  in  his  line." 

Martha  thought  she  ought  to  say  something, 
and  asked  if  he  built  churches. 

"  Well,  no,  not  exactly  build  them,"  replied 
the  lady,  drawing  a  basket  of  stockings  towards 
her,  and  setting  to  work  at  them  ;  "  though  if 
we  were  out  at  Robinson  Crusoe's  island,  my 
dear,  and  wanted  one,  I  shouldn't  wonder  if 
he'd  build  as  good  a  one  as  any  man  ;  though, 
if  you  come  to  think  of  it,"  she  continued, 
carrying  on  the  train  of  thought  suggested, 
"  we'd  hardly  want  anything  on  a  large  scale 
out  there,  a  cave  or  anything  else  liandy  would 
be  all  one  as  good  as  a  church  ;  that's  what  I 
say ;  and  better  than  us  has  had  worse  pray- 
ing-places in  the  world.  But  in  anything  to 
do  with  windows  or  pipes,  or  painter's  work, 


FIRST    CLASS    AND    THIRD    CLASS.  71 

there's  no  one  to  make  mention  of  by  his 
side,"  And  then  Mrs.  Purkiss  regaled  Mar- 
tha with  a  very  enthusiastic  little  sketch  of 
her  Imsband's  employments,  especially  in  what 
she  called  the  decorating  department.  "  He'll 
explain  to  you  all  the  outside  of  the  shop  to- 
morrow morning,  my  dear,  which  being  a  cor- 
ner, is  handy  for  showing  off  his  taste  on  two 
sides  of  the  house.  He  did  the  same  for  Lizzy 
and  for  Jane,  and  I  know  he'll  do  it  for  you, 
especially  for  my  asking  ;  and  it's  fair  you 
should  have  a  bit  of  pleasuring  before  going 
to  your  servicer"  And  then  Mrs.  Purkiss 
hinted  that,  "  if  Government  knew  what  was 
what,  they'd  have  thought  of  Purkiss  along  of 
the  Houses  of  Parliament  being  got  up  orna- 
mentally ;  but  there,  my  dear,  we  can't  expect 
to  take  the  rule  into  our  hands,  however  much 
we  think  we  could  improve  matters." 

Martha's  honest  conviction  as  she  listened 
and  endeavored  to  follow  out  Mrs.  Purkiss 
in  her  train  of  thought,  was  to  the  effect  that 
if  Government,  whoever  he  might  be,  would 
take  her  into  counsel  and  give  her  a  general 


72  FIRST    CLASS    AND    THIRD    CLASS. 

management  of  matters,  it  would  be  a  very 
good  plan  indeed,  and  she  went  so  far  as  to 
say  so.  But  Mrs.  Purkiss  shook  her  head 
with  a  little  well-satisfied  self-disparagement, 
saying,  "  Ah,  no,  my  dear ;  I  might  have 
"thought  so  once  perhaps ;  but,  there,  you  see, 
I'm  not  so  young  as  I  was ;  and  Purkiss,  why 
he's  content  for  himself,  and  so  I  ought  to  be 
for  him.  But  here  in  London  there  seems  to 
be  every  one  rising  one  at  the  top  of  another 
in  all  lines  ;  and  there's  few  know  as  well  as  I 
do  the  gifts  that  I  tell  him  he  shouldn't  hide 
from  the  generation  that  we're  called  to  live 
m." 

Then  Martha  was  silent,  and  wondered 
whether,  in  the  line  of  servants,  girls-of-all- 
work  wanted  to  rise  one  on  the  top  of  the 
other,  and  how  they  managed  it,  if  they  did  ; 
and  soon  after,  her  hostess  thought  she  must 
be  tired,  and  showed  her  the  very,  small 
chamber  off  the  stairs  where  she  was  to  sleep, 
and  left  her  saying  pleasantly  that  she'd  have 
to  begin  London  life  with  a  good  night,  and 
that   Lizzie   and   Jane   too   had   formerly  so 


FIRST    CLASS    AND    THIRD    CLASS.  73 

started   in   their   respective    careers   in    that 
identical  chamber. 

Martlia  was  in  truth  so  very  sleepy,  that  her 
ideas  melted  into  one  another  in  a  very  dis- 
orderly fashion.  She  could  hardly  believe 
tliat  it  was  only  that  morning  that  she  had 
left  home,  it  seemed  such  a  long,  long  time 
ago,  almost  in  a  different  existence.  And 
then  she  wondered  whether  they  felt  odd 
without  her,  and  especially  whether  Mrs. 
Estridge  had  been  thinking  of  her  as  she 
had  promised ;  and  then  she  thought  what 
a  wonderful  place  London  was,  and  wondered 
how  all  the  people  found  enough  to  eat,  when, 
down  at  Winthrop,  where  there  were  so  few, 
it  was  often  hard  to  obtain  a  sufficiency  for 
the  poor.  And  with  all  this  came  thoughts, 
with  her  evening  prayer,  concerning  the  Un- 
speakable Gift ;  and  she  half  fancied  that 
it  would  be  easier  to  remember  it,  and  to  live 
the  true  life  of  a  pilgrhn  to  heaven,  if,  instead 
of  travelling  in  a  train,  and  seeing  gas-lights, 
and  being  a  maid-of-all-work  in  London,  she 
could  dwell  in  tents  and  be  a  shepherdess  like 


74  FIRST   CLASS    AND   THIRD    CLASS. 

Rachel  and  Rebekah,  in  the  old  days  of  the 
world's  history.  By  which  time  Martha's  eyes 
had  grown  so  heavy,  as  to  be  unable  to  keep 
open  any  longer,  and  she  fell  asleep  with 
a  last  remembrance  of  how  comfortable  and 
pretty  Miss  Graham  had  looked  when  she 
drove  away  from  the  station  that  afternoon, 
and  with  the  words  in  her  mind,  "  but  after 
all  it'll  be  the  same  whether  we  go  first  class 
or  third  class,  if  only  we  get  rightly  to  the 
journey's  end  at  last." 


CHAPTER    IV. 


NO.    19,    MILL    STEEET,    SOUTHWARK. 


[HE  next  morning,  Mr.  Purkiss  ful- 
filled his  wife's  injunction  to  show 
Martha  the  many  glories  of  his  ex- 
ternal decorations ;  and  she  was  as  much 
struck  with  their  general  aspect  as  he  could 
possibly  have  desired. 

"  This  side,  you  see's  devoted  to  coloring," 
he  observed,  leading  the  way  round  the  cor- 
ner, and  pointing  to  where,  in  large  squares, 
somewhat  as  if  designed  for  a  huge  chess- 
board, blue  and  green  and  red  and  orange 
patches  of  color  were  displayed  with  great 
brilliancy.  "Looks  pretty  well,  doesn't  it?" 
And  Martha  said  she  thought  it  was  very 
beautiful  indeed. 


76  NO.    19,    MILL   STREET,    SOUTHWARK. 

"  You  haven't  much  of  that  sort  of  tlnng 
down  at  your  parts,  I  suppose  ? "  continued 
Mr.  Purkiss,  with  a  little  artistic  conscious- 
ness of  merit. 

"  Oh  no,"  Martha  said,  "  nothing  half  so 
fine."  Indeed,  the  only  thing  she  could  at  all 
mention  that  would  bear  comparison  with 
such  glories,  was  the  colored  glass  in  the 
windows  of  the  church  at  Winthrop,  which 
she  knew  Mr.  Estridge  thought  highly  of,  and 
which  the  clerk  had  said  was  written  about 
somewhere  in  a  book.  But  then  the  colors 
weren't  nearly  so  bright  or  plain  to  see  as  the 
squares  on  Mr.  Purkiss's  side  wall. 

"  This  is  the  finer  kind  of  work,  here  in  the 
front,"  he  continued,  with  increased  confi- 
dence and  friendliness.  "  You  take  notice, 
there's  hardly  a  word  in  all  that,  Purkiss, 
Painter,  Plumber,  Glazier,  and  General  Deco- 
rator, which  is  written  in  the  same  letters. 
That's  Roman,  and  the  next  old  English,  and 
the  next  Italics,  and  so  on ;  and  you  see  it's 
all  worked  into  a  scroll,  which  is  a  fancy 
of   mine   for   use   and    ornament   both.     It's 


NO.    19,    MILL   STREET,    SOUTHWARK.  77 

not  every  one,"  he  went  on,  "  Avho  can  see 
the  thought  and  feeling  of  my  line  of  life. 
There's  Vawse,  now,  he's  something  in  the 
same  business,  being  a  plumber,  though  I 
take  to  the  decorating  most  myself.  Well, 
I  met  him  after  the  last  frost,  going  about 
quite  in  a  low  way.  '  Ah,  Purkiss,'  he  says, 
'  everything  seems  to  go  against  us  this  year.' 
'  Why,  how  so  ? '  I  asked  of  him,  though 
knowing  what  he^was  after  as  well  as  most. 

"  'Why,'  he  says,  '  this  here  frost,  I  looked 
to  its  going  off  all  of  a  sudden,  and  pipes 
giving  way  all  round  the  neighborhood,  and 
flooding  of  houses,  and  we  being  called  up 
like  doctors  in  the  night,  and  paid  accord- 
ingly. And  now  it's  all  thawed  so  gradvial, 
like  anyone  sinking  by  inches ;  and  I've  not 
heard  of  a  pipe  burst  anywhere  round,  except- 
ing one  of  my  own,  which  is  all  loss  and 
no  gain.' 

"  '  Yawse,'  I  said  to  him,  '  feel  that  —  feel 
it  if  you  must,  and  I  feel  it  too,  for  we're 
all  mortal ;  but  don't  say  it.  It  lowers  a 
profession  for  a  man  that's  in  it  to  be  giving 


78  NO.    19,    MILL   STREET,    SOUTHWARK. 

of  it  out  that  he  thrives  on  other  folks'  trials 
and  cares,  which,  though  they  must  come, 
and  we  wouldn't,  even  for  their  good,  wish 
it  otherwise,  is  trouble  still.  A  doctor  doesn't 
give  out  that  he's  low  in  spirits  because  of 
a  healthy  season,  though  he  may  have  a  wife 
and  family  like  you,  and  feelings  with  them 
such  as  yours ;  and  it's  unbecoming  for  you 
and  me  to  act  in  any  way  different  in  the 
matter.'     That's  what  I  said  to  him." 

Martha  intimated  that  she  was  sure  he  was 
very  kind  ;  and  then  Mrs.  Purkiss  called  them 
in  to  breakfast,  and  asked  her  what  she 
thought  of  all  that  she  had  seen,  and  agreed 
with  her  that  it  would  take  a  great  deal  to 
go  beyond  her  husband's  success  in  the  out- 
ward coloring  of  their  abode. 

And  then,  after  the  cups  and  saucers  had 
been  cleared  away,  Martha  collected  her  things 
once  more  into  the  old  shawl  bundle,  and  Mr. 
Purkiss,  who  had  business  in  South wark,  took 
her  in  charge ;  and,  after  grateful  good-byes 
to  his  good-natured  wife,  she  walked  silently 
by  his  side  through  many  and  various  streets. 


NO.    19,    MILL   STREET,    SOUTHWARK.  79 

wondering  much  that  he  should  always  know 
which  way  to  tiu-n  ;  and  was  finally  left  by 
him  on  the  door-steps  of  No.  19,  Mill  Street, 
which,  she  was  told,  was  to  be  her  new  abode. 

In  the  lives  of  great  people  and  of  small 
people  there  are  moments,  standing  out  always 
in  after  memories,  in  which  one's  personal 
identity  forms  the  sole  link  of  connection  be- 
tween different  chapters  in  one's  individual 
history,  and  which  intervening  between  a  com- 
pletely finished  past  and  a  completely  unknown 
future,  are  looked  back  upon  as  moments  never 
to  be  forgotten.  Martha,  as  she  stood  on  the 
door-step  in  Mill  Street,  remained  still  for  a 
moment,  realizing  that,  with  the  retreating 
form  of  Mr.  Purkiss,  her  last  link  to  the  old 
life  amongst  kith  and  kin  was  cut.  She  would 
be  no  longer  Martha  Brooke  amongst  those 
with  whom  she  might  be  thrown,  but  simply 
"  the  girl."  She  was  on  the  brink  of  an  alto- 
gether new  existence,  and  there  was  a  little 
fear  concerning  it  in  her  heart. 

Some  readers  will  possibly  think  tliat  an 
unusually  small  amount  of  care  and  thought 


80  NO.    19,    MILL    STREET,    SOUTHWARK. 

had  been  expended  upon  her  settlement  in 
London,  and  that  the  speedy  arrangement  for 
her  services  in  the  house  of  a  stranger  be- 
trayed an  absence  of  concern  on  the  part  of 
her  relations,  not*  often  encountered  even  in 
Martha's  line  of  life.  Little  do  such  readers 
—  possibly  the  Miss  Grahams  of  our  social 
circles,  cared  for,  guarded,  protected  in  all 
their  ways,  and  in  all  their  comings  and 
goings,  from  possible  and  impossible  annoy- 
ances or  anxieties  —  know  the  absolute  reck- 
lessness with  which  young  ignorant  country 
sisters  are  cast  upon  the  perilous  seas  of  Lon- 
don life  to  sink  or  swim,  with  no  arm  out- 
stretched by  friend  or  protector  to  hold  them 
up  in  the  dangerous  waters. 

Li  comparison  with  the  majority  of  girls 
similarly  sent  forth,  Martha  was  ushered  into 
her  new  position  with  an  extraordinary  amount 
of  protection  ;  and  Mrs.  Purkiss,  in  having 
made  inquiry  of  Mrs.  Johnson,  who  further 
made  inquiry  of  her  cousin,  concerning  the 
respecta1)ility  of  Mrs.  Banlcs  and  her  lodging- 
house,  and    in    having   satisfied   herself  that 


NO.    19,    MILL   STREET,    SOUTHWARK.  81 

"  Eliza  Brooke's  girl  would  he  in  safe  keeping, 
and  have  no  cli&nce  of  bad  company,"  had 
performed  the  office  of  protectress,  as  a  good 
angel  of  discretion,  and  in  a  manner  which 
too  few  allow  themselves  to  regard  as  a  neces- 
sity, and  which  fully  justified  Mrs.  Brooke's 
announcements  to  Winthrop  neighbors,  that 
"  she  had  friends  in  London  such  as  finer 
folks  might  be  glad  on,  and  that  there  wasn't 
nothing  common  about  the  way  her  girls  was 
got  out  once  they  were  off  her  hands," 

And  if  a  line  might  here  be  written  on  be- 
half of  a  race  comparatively  neglected,  and 
yet  so  numerous  as  to  be  altogether  beyond 
estimation :  a  race,  concerning  which  pages 
and  volumes  might  record  the  sad  story,  "  No 
man  cared  for  my  soul,"  it  would  be  to  en- 
treat a  word  of  encouragement,  of  solicitude, 
of  help  for  the  often  overtasked  serving  sister 
whose  country  home  is  an  old  story  with  her 
now,  and  who  has  been  cast  adrift  upon  a  life 
to  which  but  scant  rays  of  sunshine  find  their 
way  —  a  word  wliicli  may  wake  up  tender 
thoughts  of  the  past  and  some  hopes  for  the 

0 


82  NO.    19,    MILL   STREET,   SOUTHWAEK. 

future,  if  truly  spoken  for  His  sake  who  once 
took  upon  Himself  the  form  of  a  servant,  and 
who  even  now  bids  us  by  love  serve  one  an- 
other. 

Martha  had  not  stood  for  more  than  a  mo- 
ment on  the  doorstep  before  she  became  con- 
scious that  a  storm  of  wrath  was  going  for- 
ward within ;  and  the  sudden  opening  of  the 
door,  from  which  a  girl  of  about  her  own  size 
hastily  came  forth  into  the  street,  suggested 
to  her  that  it  might  probably  be  the  best  op- 
portunity for  presenting  herself  to  her  new 
employer. 

Within  stood  a  stout  middle-aged  woman, 
who,  being  charged  with  a  priming  of  words, 
originally,  and  in  the  commencement  of  de- 
livery, intended  for  the  outgoing  damsel, 
seemed  to  consider  that  it  might  be  an  un- 
necessary economy  to  reserve  the  remainder 
for  Martha  at  a  more  distant  moment ;  so  that 
the  first  sentence  which  greeted  the  Winthrop 
maiden  was  the  general  remark,  — 

"  And  you  call  yourself  a  servant  by  the 
name   of    Hannah    Jane,   and   throwing    out 


NO.    19,   MILL   STREET,   SOUTHWARK.  83 

crumbs  for  birds  from  out  of  the  table-cloth 
into  the  yard,  which,  browned  in  the  oven, 
would  have  come  in  for  the  front  parlor's  fish 
this  very  day.  It's  a  good  thing  you're  going, 
or  I'd  Hannah  Jane  you,  and  any  one  else  that 
has  ways  of  that  sort  in  this  house." 

At  the  conclusion  of  which  observation,  or 
rather  during  a  pause  in  which  Mrs.  Banks 
seemed  to  be  considering  what  she  should  say 
next,  she  allowed  herself  to  become  suddenly 
aware  of  Martha's  presence,  and  stopped  to 
say,— 

"  0,  I  suppose  you're  the  girl !  " 

Martha  replied,  timidly,  that  she  thought 
she  was. 

"  You  might  have  come  an  hour  sooner, 
then,"  was  the  rejoinder,  "  for  all  that's  to  be 
got  through  of  work  before  dinner-time ;  and 
I  hope  tliat  you've  hands  and  feet,  and  a  mind 
to  use  the  same,  which  is  more  than  most  girls 
has  now-a-days." 

Martha  hoped  she  had,  but  hardly  ventured 
to  say  so ;  and  after  this  brief  introduction, 
her  new  mistress  led  the  way  to  a  sort  of 


84  NO.    19,   MILL   STREET,   SOUTHWARK. 

large  cupboard  looking  over  the  leads  at  the 
top  of  the  house,  wherein  was  room  for  a  rough 
bed  and  a  stool,  telling  her  she  might  leave 
her  bundle  there,  and  come  down,  as  soon  as 
she  had  put  on  her  working-clothes,  to  the 
kitchen,  where  abundance  of  work  was  in 
store  for  her. 

Mrs.  Banks,  as  our  readers  will  already  have 
discovered,  was  not  a  woman  of  gentle  disposi- 
tion. The  cares  of  a  London  life,  and  still 
more  the  care  of  a  London  lodging-house,  do 
not  tend  to  soften  a  hard  temper,  and  tend 
very  much  indeed  to  the  hardening  of  a  rough 
one.  She  was  not  naturally  harsher  than 
many  others  of  her  class  ;  but  having  grown  up 
as  the  daughter  of  a  letter  of  lodgings,  and 
having  pursued  the  same  calling  in  later  life, 
she  had  seen  a  great  deal  of  the  worst  side  of 
men  and  women,  had  found  out  that  people 
sometimes  go  off  without  remembering  to  pay 
just  and  lawful  claims,  that  the  grocer  occa- 
sionally puts  sand  into  the  sugar,  and  the 
baker  alum  into  the  bread;  that  servants  now 
and  then  have  tendencies  to  dawdle  or  to  go 


NO.    19,   MILL   STREET,   SOUTHWARK.  85 

out  when  they  should  remain  within,  and  that 
the  collectors  of  rates  and  taxes  are  frequent 
in  their  calls,  and  never  forget  the  number  of 
the  house.  And  so  it  had  come  to  be  that, 
with  Mrs.  Banks,  eyes  and  ears  and  tongue 
had  formed  themselves  into  a  sort  of  defence 
committee  against  the  ways  of  the  outer  world, 
and  that,  unhappily  for  her  own  peace  of  mind, 
her  plan  had  come  to  be  tliat  of  believing  every 
one  to  be  guilty  unless,  by  some  rarely-re- 
turned verdict,  proved  to  be  the  reverse.  In 
her  eyes  there  were  three  great  divisions  of 
society,  —  a  king,  lords,  and  commons,  into 
which  all  that  portion  of  mankind  resolved 
itself  which  lay  within  her  ken  —  parlors,  two- 
pair  fronts,  and  attics.  And  it  was  concern- 
ing this  threefold  apportionment  that  Martha 
was,  at  her  first  outset  in  service,  duly  en- 
lightened. 

It  seemed  to  her,  on  that  first  day,  as  if  she 
were  fighting  and  struggling  against  a  whirl- 
wind of"  what's  to  be  done  next  ?  "  as  if  cook- 
ing and  cleaning,  and  washing-up,  and  answer- 
ing  bells,    and    trying    to    remember    orders 


86  NO.    19,   MILL   STREET,   SOUTHWARK. 

from  Mrs.  Banks,  followed  one  upon  the  other 
with  a  fierce  and  bewildering  confusion ;  as  if 
she  had  never  known  real  weariness  before ; 
while  at  the  same  time  she  felt  half  guilty  at 
being  so  tired,  since  her  mistress  seemed  gifted 
with  powers  of  ''  following  round  "  which  were 
not  exhausted  by  the  close  of  the  evening. 

She  wanted  to  remember  the  names  and 
places  of  a  hundred  things  which  were  new  to 
her,  and,  above  all,  the  directions  for  her 
future  conduct  to  the  lodgers,  which  Mrs. 
Banks  showered  down  upon  her  rapidly. 

"You  mind  —  whatever  comes,  the  front 
parlor's  before  all  when  it  rings.  The  door 
may  wait,  but  never  the  parlor.  They  pay 
reg'lar,  and  they  expect  reg'lar  service,  which 
attendance  and  linen  is  named  in  the  agree- 
ment ;  and  I'm  never  going  to  lose  good 
lodgers  for  idle  servants.  Two-pair  fronts, 
now,  may  wait.  If  it  comes  handy,  I  don't 
mind  your  looking  in,  but  I  wouldn't  have 
such  as  them  giving  of  themselves  airs,  or 
taking  out  in  attendance,  besides  their  paying 
of  sixpence  less  than  those  who  was  there 
before  them." 


NO.    19,    MILL  STREET,   SOUTHWARK.  87 

"  And  suppose  the  other  people,  up  at  the 
top,  ring  too  ?  "  inquired  Martha,  somewhat 
timidly  ;  "  mustn't  I  go  to  them  ?  " 

Mrs.  Banks  looked  at  her  new  handmaiden 
for  a  moment  in  speechless  surprise,  holding 
up  the  toasting-fork  which  she  had  at  that 
instant  in  her  hand  as  a  sort  of  visible  and  in- 
corporate note  of  exclamation  at  the  audacity 
of  the  idea 'which  her  question  suggested. 

"  Top  attics  ring ! "  she  exclaimed,  after 
fully  taking  in  the  idea,  "top  attics  ring  — 
ring  bells  and  paying  two  shillings  a  week  for 
one  room,  kitchen  fire  not  included.  I  fancy 
I  hear  them.  I'd  attic  them  pretty  soon,  I 
can  tell  you  ;  "  whereupon  Martha  was  willing 
to  let  the  subject  drop  as  speedily  as  possible, 
while  her  mistress  murmured  to  herself  all 
the  way  up-stairs  at  the  suggestion  which  had 
for  a  moment,  as  she  expressed  it,  "  most 
taken  away  her  breath." 

It  will  have  l^een  perceived  by  the  reader 
that  Mrs.  Banks  had  invented  a  mode  of 
defence  in  her  conflict  with  the  world  which 
admitted  of  very  extensive  use  in  the  way  of 


88  NO.    19,    MILL   STREET,   SOUTHWARK. 

warfare.     It  was  simj^ly  that  of  adopting  as  a 
threatening  weapon  the  last  noun  of  impor- 
tance which  had  been  used  by  herself  or  the 
object  of  her  wrath,  and  which  by  being,  as  it 
were,  picked  up  from  the  field  of  battle,  and 
winged  and  barbed  for  use  by  transposition 
into  an  active  verb,  was  launched  forth  from 
her  lips  with  a  vague  and  terrible  indefinite- 
ness  of  meaning  which,  in  inexperienced  ears, 
added  greatly  to  its  power  and  effect.     It  was 
after  an  account  of  the  misdemeanors  of  the 
last  servant  who  had  been  known  on  one  oc- 
casion to  "  overlay  herself,"  as  Mrs.  Banks 
expressed  it,  until  seven  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing,  and   with   the   added   reminiscence,  •'  I 
seven   o'clocked   her  pretty  well,  I  can  tell 
you,"  that  Martha  at  last  found  her  way  to 
her  sleeping  chamber.     She  had  it  to  herself, 
at  least  for  the  present ;  though  her  mistress 
had  forewarned   her  that   "  as  likely  as  not 
she'd  have  to  give  it  up  to  some  one  as  would 
pay  for  if,  and  make  up  a  bed  for  herself  in 
the  back-kitchen,  which  she  hoped  she  might 
never    find    herself   worse    off,   and  -a   good 


NO.    19,   MILL   STREET,   SOUTHWARK.  89 

blanket  on  the  bed  that  had  cost  her  twelve 
and  six  a  pair,  if  it  had  cost  a  penny." 

And  when  Martha  had  sat  down  for  a  min- 
ute on  her  bed  to  rest  and  think,  she  went 
to  the  little  garret  window  in  the  roof,  and,"  in 
spite  of  the  cold,  opened  it  and  looked  out. 
The  keen  frost  had  given  place  to  a  milder 
temperature ;  but  the  stars  were  shining  up 
above  the  fog  and  smoke  as  they  had  shone 
two  days  before  above  the  damps  of  the  Nor- 
folk fens ;  and  the  crescent  moon  was  high 
and  bright  over  the  great  city  as  she  had  seen 
it  from  among  the  grave-stones  in  Winthrop 
Church-yard  on  the  Christmas  afternoon  which 
seemed  now  so  long  ago. 

Martha  was  tired  in  body  and  mind ;  and 
the  sense  of  being  swallowed  up  as  a  drop  in 
the  great  ocean  of  London  life  gave  her  a 
feeling  of  depression  and  bewilderment. 

"  So  many  chimneys,"  §he  said  to  herself, 
looking  over  the  wilderness  of  house-tops 
spreading  out  on  every,  side  — "  so  many 
chinmeys,  and  every  chimney  going  down 
to  some  place,  and  every  place  full  of  people. 


90  NO.    19,   MILL   STREET,   SOUTHWARK. 

It  seems  like  being  lost  among  such  crowds. 
I  wonder  if  there's  maids-of-all-work  in  all 
the  houses  that's  got  to  be  followed  round  and 
worked  hard  like  me.  1  wonder  whether 
they'll  be  thinking  of  me  at  home,  which  is  so 
far  off  as  if  one  would  never  get  there  again. 
Mother  used  to  scold,  but  somehow  it  seems 
harder  to  take  when  one's  to  take  wages  with 
it,  and  meaning  well  all  the  time.  I  wonder 
whether  Mrs.  Estridge  will  keep  her  promise 
to  think  of  me.  I  think  of  her  all  sorts  of 
times,  but  it's  so  different  for  a  lady  like  her ; 
and  she  doesn't  know  how  lost  one  seems 
away  from  every-one,  and  in  such  a  big  place 
that  I  wouldn't  know  my  way  back  for  any 
money.  I  wonder  what  Miss  Graham's  doing 
now —  somewhere  in  London  too.  I'd  like  to 
meet  her  or  see  her  go  by ;  —  it'd  be  some- 
thing from  Winthrop. 

"  But  I  must  try  and  do  right,  and  be  true. 

I  remember  how  Mrs.  Estridge  said  once  '  He 

■  calleth  the  stars  by  their  names.'      There's 

lots   of  them   up   there  —  as  many  as  there 

is  people  in  London ;   but  He  calls  them  all 


NO.    19,   MILL   STREET,   SOUTHWARK.  91 

right,  and  it  says  there's  not  one  faileth. 
And  then  she  said  He  calls  «5  by  name,  and . 
we  find  grace  in  His  sight.  I  wish  I  could 
remember  everything  as  well  as  all  that  she 
said  that  afternoon  after  Mary  Lee  was  buried  ; 
but  I'll  ask  Him  to  call  me  by  name  —  like 
His  own  sheep  —  when  I'm  put  about  or  tired 
or  dull  —  to  let  me  feel  His  voice  as  she  said 
He  would ;  and  —  " 

But  Martha's  reflections   were   interrupted 
by  the  striking  of  the  hour  from  towers  and 
steeples  which  stood  out  in  the  fog  and  moon- 
light like  guardians  of  the  city  while  it  slept. 
The   news   of  the   departure   to   give   in   its 
account  of  another  hour,  was  proclaimed  in 
different  tones  —  slowly  and  solemnly  on  one 
side,  lightly  and  hurriedly  on  others;   here, 
heavily,  and  as  if  laden  with  the  burden  of 
the  world's  weariness,  and  there  with  a  jaunty 
attempt   at   seeming   not   to    care   about   the 
matter.     And  before  the  last  tone  had  died 
away,  a  sweet  voice  of  chimes  seemed  to  bring 
a  farewell  message  of  hope  and  greeting  from 
the   parting  hour   as   it   sped  —  chimes  like 


92  NO.    19,    MILL   STREET,   SOUTHWARK. 

those  of  Winthrop  Church,  and  which  brought 
,  the  same  tears  to  Martha's  eyes  which  had 
filled  them  when  Mrs.  Estridge's  hand  had 
been  on  her  shoulder  and  her  voice  in  her 
ears. 

"It's  to  remind  me  —  it's  to  make  me  re- 
member '  the  Unspeakable  Gift,' "  she  said  to 
herself,  with  a  sudden  springing  up  of  thought 
and  desire  in  her  heart.  "  I  won't  forget  —  I 
won't  ever  give  way  if  I  can  help  it,  or  think 
He  doesn't  mind  about  me  because  I'm  com- 
mon and  only  a  plain  servant.  I'll  try,  0,  I'll 
try  and  please  Him,  because  He  came  for  me. 
Those  bells  will  remind  me  when  I  forget,  and 
I'm  so  glad  they're  here.  And  I'll  keep  the 
Christmas  chimes  going  on  in  my  heart  —  as 
the  message  said  —  like  it  went  to  "Winthrop 
bells  on  Christmas-day  —  yes,  it's  thanks  be 
unto  God  for  His  Unspeakable  Gift  —  that's 
the  chime  I'll  keep  always  gomg." 


CHAPTER    V. 


MAETHA    AND    THE   TOP    ATTIC    MAKE    FRIENDS. 


j  ARTHA  had  not  been  many  days  in 
Mrs.  Banks'  employment  before  she 
observed  that,  early  every  morning, 
after  having  duly  cleaned  and  set  to  rights  the 
top  attic  mentioned  hj  her  mistress  as  being 
charged  two  shillings  a  week,  kitchen  fire  not 
included,  a  careworn  and  elderly  woman  came 
forth,  as  for  a  day's  work,  never  returning 
until  six  o'clock  in  the  evening,  at  which  time 
she  carried  with  her  a  small  basket  apparently 
containing  whatever  marketings  she  had  been 
able  to  procure.  Martha  thought  she  had  dis- 
tinguished the  sound  of  voices  in  the  room, 
but  never  from  morning  till  night  having  a 


94  MARTHA   AND   THE 

moment  to  herself,  she  had  only  been  able  to 
wonder  who  the  other  occupant  of  the  cham- 
ber might  be. 

All  she  knew  was  that  the  name  was  Elm- 
hurst,  and  that  bearers  of  that  name  were 
thought  of  but  slightingly  by  Mrs.  Banks,  who 
uttered  a  general  intimation  that  she  would 
"  pretty  soon  attendance  anyone  who  dawdled 
about  top  attics  when  there  was  parlors  wanted 
looking  after,"  and  who  took ,  good  care  that 
the  provision  of  down-stair  work  should  be 
sufficient  to  prevent  any  such  transgression, 
had  Martha  been  so  inclined. 

Sunday  came -^  the  first  Sunday  she  had 
ever  passed  away  from  Winthrop  —  and  with 
it  Martha  had  hoped  for  a  little  quiet.  She 
did  not  mind  work;  on  the  contrary,  she 
rather  liked  to  get  through  creditably  with  the 
cleaning  and  cooking  and  polishing  that  fol- 
lowed so  rapidly  one  upon  the  other ;  and 
although  there  was  something  rather  alarming 
in  her  first  waiting  at  table  for  such  particular 
persons  as  Mrs.  and  Miss  Smythe,  who  were. 
"  the  parlors  "  in  Mrs.  Banks'  establishment, 


TOP   ATTIC   MAKE   FEIENDS.  95 

and  who  held  themselves  high,  and  did  not 
condescend  to  speak  to  the  servant,  still  she 
made  up  with  strength  and  willingness  for 
what  she  wanted  in  experience.  There  were 
two  things,  however,  for  which  Martha  was 
unconsciously. longing.  The  first  was  for  an 
interval  —  if  only  an  hour  —  of  quiet ;  and 
the  other,  for  the  sound  —  if  only  for  a  few 
minutes  —  of  a  friendly  voice.  She  did  not 
know  the  name  of  a  feeling  that  was  over  her 
—  a  feeling  of  longing  and  heart-yearning  and 
sadness,  such  as  she  had  never  felt  before,  but 
which  came  to  her  at  night  before  she  went  to 
sleep,  and  by  day,  when  hands  and  feet  were 
busy  in  kitchen  and  wash-house,  and  con- 
stantly when  the  chimes  from  the  friendly 
steeple  reminded  her  of  Winthrop,  and  of  lit- 
tle Mary  Lee  in  the  churchyard  —  a  strange 
heart-hunger,  which  you  and  I  may  have  felt 
and  known  as  home-sickness.  For  do  not 
imagine,  my  reader,  that  those  who  have  left 
happy  homes,  and  who  know  that  they  are  fol- 
lowed by  the  prayers  of  loving  parents  and 
fond  sisters,  and  who  can  in  fancy  hear  tender 


96  MARTHA    AND   THE 

voices  blended  in  remembrances  of  the  absent 
one,  are  the  only  ones  to  whom  home-sickness 
comes.  Far  from  it.  The  wanderer  from 
many  a  home,  as  hard  and  loveless  as  the 
Brookes'  cottage  on  the  fens — the  ragged  boy, 
who  has  never  had  a  father's  house  —  may  yet 
in  secret  heart-chambers  know  that  inner  crav- 
ing for  something  to  which  no  word  answers 
but  home  ;  and  I  have  sometimes  thought  that 
the  need  of  an  abiding  resting-place  for  the 
heart,  and  of  a  sure  centre  for  our  unspoken 
affections  and  desires,  is  shadowed  forth  in  the 
longings  which  we  call  home-sickness,  whether 
here  it  be  satisfied  or  not. 

Martha  was  home-sick,  more  because  she 
missed  having  something  familiar,  something 
by  right  belonging  to  her,  than  because  she 
could  look  back  to  any  endearing  associations 
in  her  own  family ;  and  more,  far  more,  with 
the  longing  in  her  heart  for  Mrs.  Estridge's 
face  and  voice,  than  for  anything  else  in  all 
Winthrop.  And  on  this  first  Sunday  she  had 
felt  as  if  she  would  like  to  find  her  way  to  the 
church  with  the  chimes,  as  if  it  would  be  like 


TOP    ATTIC    MAKE    FRIENDS.  97 

finding  a  friend  —  a  friend  telling  her  about 
"  the  Unspeakable  Gift ;  "  and  so,  though  with 
some  misgivings,  as  to  how  her  petition  would 
he  received,  she  had  asked  Mrs.  Banks 
whether,  after  washing  up  breakfast  things 
and  tidying  the  rooms,  she  would  be  able  to 
let  her  go  to  church. 

If  Martha  had  indulged  in  some  fears  con- 
cerning the  matter,  they  were  fully  justified 
by  Mrs.  Banks,  who  seemed  to  think  that  for 
a  servant-of-all-work  to  ask  to  go  to  church  in 
tlie  morning  was  a  l)eginning  which  might 
lead  to  heights  of  presumption  to  which  no 
imagination  would  enable  her  to  follow. 

"  Church !  You  receiving  of  five  pounds 
a-year,  tea  and  sugar  and  washing  foiuid,  or 
soap  given  for  the  last,  which  there's  every- 
thing for  drying  out  at  tlie  Ijack,  —  church, 
this  time  of  the  day,  when  the  parlors  has  a 
gentleman  to  dinner,  and  hot  shoulder  of 
mutton  coming  on  the  table,  and  the  upstairs' 
people  at  home,  and  calling  for  boots  over  the 
stairs,  and  you  talking,  like  a  lady,  of  going 
out  to  church  !     Well,  Hannah  Jane  wasn't 

7 


98  MARTHA    AND    THE 

much,  and  took  mindin'  to  that  extent,  that 
I've  told  her  she'd  be  best  standin'  for  a  sign 
over  the  house-door,  like  the  Chinaman  with  a 
tail,  and  a  canister  in  his  hand,  over  the  tea 
store,  the  other  side  of  the  way,  for  all  the 
good  she  was  in  the  house  —  Hannah  Jane 
wasn't  much,  but  she'd  have  thought  twice 
before  she  brought  it  up  to  me  about  church- 
going,  though  I  let  her  go  out  twice  a  month 
in  the  evenings  to  church  or  chapel,  or  any- 
thing that  came  handy,  which  is  more  than 
most  would,  and  don't  care  if  you  do  the  same,^ 
so  that  there's  nothing  wanting  doing  at  home. 
You  talk  to  me  of  church-going  again  this 
time  of  day,  and  I'll  tell  you  where  it'll  end ; 
and  that's  in  your  expecting  of  a  silk  gown, 
and  a  carriage  to  the  door,  with  a  double  knock, 
and  a  footman  to  carry  your  book  before  you, 
and  the  clergyman  to  wait  prayers,  with  every- 
body looking  over  their  prayer-books  to  see 
who  it  is.  You  go  and  clean  up  those  things, 
or  I'll  church  you  pretty  soon,  I  can  tell  you." 
Martha  obeyed  quite  silently,  and  occupied 
herself  with  trying  to  discover  the  links   by 


TOP    ATTIC   MAKE   FEIENDS.  99 

which,  from  Mrs.  Banks'  point  of  view,  her 
desire  for  church-going  would  land  her  at  last 
at  that  point  of  her  expecting  the  carriage  and 
the  livery-footman,  and  wondered  that  people 
should  be  so  different  from  each  other  as  her 
mistress  and  Mrs.  Estridge.  And  then  came 
the  usual  week-day  hurry  and  scolding  ;  and 
if  it  had  not  been  for  the  chimes,  and  for  see- 
ing people  go  by  with  books  in  their  hands, 
and  for  the  church-going  look  about  them,  and 
for  the  closed  shops,  and  for  the  extra  dinner 
for  the  first-story  people,  who,  being  clerks  in 
an  office,  stayed  at  home  on  that  day  only, 
Martha  would  hardly  have  known  that  it  was 
Sunday,  or  believed  that  it  meant  the  same  as 
it  did  at  Winthrop. 

It  was  not  till  the  afternoon  that  she  man- 
aged to  secure  a  quiet  half-hour.  Mrs.  Banks 
went  out  in  a  grand  dress  of  green  silk,  put 
on  only  for  state  occasions,  leaving  many  in- 
junctions with  her  servant  as  to  the  lodgers' 

» 

tea,  and  as  to  her  own  behavior  in  respect  of 
temptations  to  look  out  of  the  window,  and  to 
gossip  out  of  the  door,  and  to  find  her  way  out 


100  MAETHA   AND   THE 

of  the  area,  such  as  it  had  not  occurred  to 
Martha  to  think  of.  And  then,  when  every- 
thing had  been  put  away,  and  for  awhile  all 
was  still,  she  went  up  to  her  own  little  room, 
and,  sitting  down,  began  to  think  of  home. 

"Just  half-past  two,"  she  said  to  herself; 
"  Mrs.  Estridge  is  giving  out  the  hymn  now. 
They'll  miss  me,  I  think ;  at  least,  she  prom- 
ised she  would,  and  I  do  believe  she  meant  it. 
I  wonder  what  she'll  be  saying  to  them  this 
afternoon.  Oh,  I  wish,  I  wish  I  could  be 
there !  It'd  be  such  a  help,  and  I  seem  to 
want  something  to  help  me.  It  all  seems  one 
day  like  another  here  ;  and  though  they  didn't 
care  for  good  things  at  home,  there  was  always 
Sunday  for  church  and  going  up  to  the  Bible- 
class.  I  wish  I  had  been  braver  to  speak  to 
Mrs.  Estridge  and  tell  her  that  I'm  trying  to 
serve  Jesus,  —  that  I've  asked  for  the  Unspeak- 
able Gift.  It  seemed  so  hard  to  tell  her,  I  was 
feeling  it  all  deep  inside.     If  only  ladies  knew 

« 

how  hard  it  is  for  poor  girls  to  speak  to  them, 
they'd  find  out  it's  not  always  because  we 
don't  care. 


TOP    ATTIC    MAKE    FRIENDS.  101 

"  And  now  how  am  I  to  keep  true  and  get 
on  ?  There's  no  one  to  speak  a  word  to  me 
here.  I  can't  even  get  to  church  regular,  and 
that  would  have  been  something.  Missus, 
why  she'd  scorn  me  if  she  was  to  know  I 
thought  He  cared  for  me  ;  and  it  all  seems 
a  life  without  any  one  else  to  care.  I'd  work 
hard,  —  I  want  to  work  hard ;  but  I  want 
to  remember  all  the  same.  I  want  to  please 
Him,  —  I  want  to  do  everything  right  for  His 
sake  who  came  at  Christmas-time  for  mine. 
And  oh,  if  only  He'll  help  me !  If  only 
He'll  keep  me  from  giving  up  and  not  caring. 
And  He  says  He  will.  That's  what  Mrs. 
Estridge  said  two  Sundays  ago :  '  I  am  poor 
and  needy,  but  the  Lord  careth  for  me.'  And 
then  He's  pleased  if  we  try  to  do  what  He 
tells  us.  It  says  so  in  the  Bible.  And  I'll 
try,  —  I  will;  I  think  I  am  trying.  I'll  not 
answer  back,  and  I'll  do  all  my  work  as  well 
as  I  can ;  and  I'll  thank  Him  for  caring  to 
think  about  me  in  this  great  big  place,  and  I 
only  a  stupid  plain  servant,  with  nobody  else 
to  mind  how  I  get  on." 


102  MARTHA   AND   THE 

Then  Martha  read  a  little  out  of  her  Win- 
throp  Bible,  and  knelt  down,  and  asked  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Saviour,  of  Bethlehem,  to  help  her 
to  be  true,  and  in  her  little  humble  life  to 
show  forth  His  praise ;  and  she  read  the 
Collect  prayer  for  pardon  and  peace,  and 
asked  that  she  might  be  cleansed  from  her 
sins,  and  serve  Him  with  a  quiet  mind,  and 
that  though  she  couldn't  go  to  church,  yet  that 
she  might  feel  it  was  Sunday  and  keep  it  holy 
before  Him.  And  then,  when  the  chimes 
sounded  into  her  room  as  with  a  special 
Sabbath  message,  she  told  Him  that  she 
wanted  to  keep  the  chimes  always  going 
in  her  heart,  —  the  Christmas  chime  of  thanks 
for  the  Unspeakable  Gift :  and  when  she  rose 
up,  the  afternoon  sun  was  streaming  into  her 
room,  and  there  was  a  great  peace  in  the 
heart  of  the  little  maid-of-all-work,  and  she 
found  herself  singing  in  a  low  voice,  and 
with  a  wonderful  thankfulness  in  her  soul, 
the  words  of  the  Christmas  hymn  :  — 

"  Joyful  all  ye  nations  rise, 
Join  the  triumph  of  the  skies  ; 
With  the  heavenly  hosts  proclaim, 
Christ  is  born  at  Bethlehem." 


TOP   ATTIC   MAKE   FEIENDS.  103 

She  had  only  ceased  for  a  minute  or  two 
when  the  handle  of  the  door  was  turned,  and 
the  elderly  woman  known  to  inhaliit  the  top 
attic  appeared,  dressed,  evidently,  for  after- 
noon service. 

"  I'm  going  to  church,"  she  said  ;  "  1  wish 
you'd  give  a  look  in  now  and  then  at  my  poor 
girl,  and  see  if  she  wants  anything.  I've 
never  had  a  chance  to  speak  to  you  before." 

Martha  came  to  a  rapid  conclusion  that 
looking  in  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  need  not 
be  counted  as  the  "  attendance,"  so  much 
resented  in  idea  by  Mrs.  Banks ;  and  knocked 
at  the  door  as  Mrs.  Elmhurst  went  down 
the  stairs. 

"  Come  in,"  said  a  weary  voice  from  within  ; 
and  so  invited  she  entered  at  once. 

The  room,  poor  and  scantily  furnished  as 
it  was,  was  exquisitely  neat ;  and  on  a  sort  of 
couch  made  by  the  extension  of  an  old  horse- 
hair mattress  upon  two  rough  deal  boxes, 
lay  a  girl  of  about  eight  and  twenty,  covered 
with  a  coarse  woollen  shawl.  There  was 
a  look  of  education  and  thoughtfulncss  in  her 


104  MARTHA    AND   THE 

face,  which  in  a  moment  impressed  Martha 
with  respect ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  an 
occasional  expression  of  weariness  and  anx- 
iety kindled  the  sympathies  which  in  our 
Winthrop  maiden's  case  had  been  repressed 
by  the  harshness  of  her  outer  life,  but  had  by 
no  means  been  extinguished. 

"  You're  the  new  servant,  I  suppose,"  said 
the  stranger,  taking  in  at  a  glance  all  that 
showed  itself  in  Martha's  appearance  of  sturdy 
straightforward  homeliness. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Martha,  hardly  knowing- 
how  to  begin  advances  ;  "  I've  been  here  ever 
since  Wednesday  ;  but  I  didn't  know  anything 
about  your  being  up  here." 

"  It's  hardly  likely  you  would,"  replied  the 
invalid ;  "  we're  only  top  attics,"  she  added, 
with  a  half  smile ;  "  I  hardly  think  Mrs. 
Banks  knows  my  name." 

"  I  knew  your  mother  was  Elmhurst,"  said 
Martha ;  "  but  she  never  spoke  to  me  till 
to-day,  and  I  didn't  dare  to  look  in  without 
asking." 

"  No  one  ever  does  look  in,"  was  the  an- 


TOP    ATTIC    MAKE    FRIENDS.  105 

swer;  "little  Hannah,  that  went  away  last 
week,  did,  now  and  then,  when  she  had  a 
chance ;  but  she  couldn't  stand  the  work. 
How  do  you  get  on?" 

Martha  said  that  she  got  on  middling,  —  it 
all  seemed  very  strange  at  first ;  and  Mrs. 
Banks  seemed  easily  put  out.  Then  she  added, 
by  way  of  excuse,  —  for  certain  thoughts  be- 
longing to  the  last  hour  had  made  her  feelings 
towards  her  mistress  and  every  one  else  gen- 
tler than  before,  —  "  country  ways  are  different 
to  town  ways,  I  suppose." 

"  You're  from  the  country,  then  ? "  said 
the  sick  girl  inquiringly ;  and  Martha  replied 
that  she  was,  —  that,  in  fact,  she  was  "  out 
of  Norfolk." 

"  I'm  from  the  cquntry,  too,"  she  went  on. 
"  My  name's  Kate  —  Kate  Elmhurst.  I  used 
to  live  away  in  Somersetshire,  down  amongst 
the  hills,  before  father  died.  I  sometimes 
think  I'd  give  everything  in  the  world  to 
be  down  in  the  country  again." 

"  It  seems  quite  different  here,"  rejoined 
Martha,  by  way  of  saying  something. 


106  MARTHA   AND   THE 

"  It's  the  roar,"  said  Kate ;  "  the  roar  of 
the  city  which  never  stops.  I  lie  here  wonder- 
ing how  it  felt  to  be  quite  still,  —  to  hear 
nothing  but  stillness,  —  and  then  I  sometimes 
feel  as  if  I  shall  go  crazy  just  for  a  minute's 
quiet.  There's  less  noise  Sundays ;  but  all 
the  same,  there's  no  silence— ^ no  quiet." 

"  Have  you  been  long  here  ? "  asked  Mar- 
tha, with  a  sort  of  shyness  over  her  on  oc- 
casion of  almost  her  first  visit  to  a  sick  bed. 

"  Two  years  laid  up.  Father  died  five  years 
ago.  He  was  a  gardener.  And  then  mother 
and  me  thouglit  we'd  get  on  better  up  here, 
and  she  went  out  to  needlework,  and  I  worked 
at  a  factory.  The  people  where  we  lodged  at 
first  behaved  badly  to  us,  and  we  got  poorer 
and  poorer ;  and  then  I  was  ill  and  couldn't 
work;  and  now  mother  she  keeps  on  trying 
to  get  enough  for  us  both,  and  brings  me 
a  little  work  when  she  can  get  it;  but  it's 
only  a  very  little,  after  all." 

"  I'm  so  sorry,"  said  Martha,  with  true 
womanly  pity  coming  into  her  dark  grey  eyes, 
"  I  wish  I  could  do  anything  for  you.  Wliat 
laid  you  up?  " 


TOP   ATTIC   MAKE   FRIENDS.  107 

"  Biscuits,"  was  the  answer,  as  Kate  wearily 
changed  her  position. 

"  Biscuits  !  "  exclaimed  Martha,  who  en- 
deavored in  vain  to  remember  any  form  of 
illness  of  which  she  had  ever  heard  having 
biscuits  as  a  symptom. 

"  Yes  ;  I  worked  at  the  biscuit-mills.  It 
was  a  long  way  to  walk,  and  I  wasn't  strong. 
I  think  I  over-walked  very  often.  My  work 
was  among  the  packers,  and  though  it  didn't 
seem  hard  to  look  on  at,  it  was  hard  for 
me.  I  was  at  it  from  seven  in  the  morning 
till  six  in  the  evening.  The  people  weren't 
unkind  to  me,  but  it  was  the  stooping  all  day 
in  the  hot  room,  full  of  people  and  noise,  that 
seemed  to  tire  me  out.  Then  mother  was 
taken  ill,  and  I  sat  up  with  her  all  night. 
I  couldn't  aiford  to  be  with  her  by  day,  for  my 
six  shillings  a  week  was  all  we  had  to  live  on. 
And  then  when  she  got  better,  I  was  taken  ill, 
and  they  said  it  was  my  back,  and  I  know 
they  said  I'd  never  get  well  again.  I  was 
very  ill  at  first,  and  a  sort  of  fever  came 
on  me,  and  by  times  I  was  delirious.     And  all 


108  MARTHA    AND    THE 

through  I  never  seemed  to  see  anything  but 
biscuits.  Every  noise  was  biscuits  mixing,  or. 
being  poured  out  over  me,  or  weighing  for  the 
tins  and  not  coming  right.  I  used  to  think  I 
was  packing  and  couldn't  get  them  into  the 
boxes ;  or  hungry,  and  couldn't  get  anything 
to  eat  but  biscuits ;  or,  worse  still,  thirsty, 
and  they'd  give  me  biscuits  instead  of  water. 
I  hope  I'll  never  have  such  a  time  again. 
When  I  got  better,  I  found  I  couldn't  get 
about,  and  mother  got  this  room  cheap,  and 
she  has  to  work  for  both  of  us." 

Martha  listened  with  deepest  interest.  "  It 
must  have  been  dreadful,"  she  said  ;  and  then, 
with  a  sudden  expression  of  sympathy,  of 
which  in  her  shyness  she  almost  felt  ashamed, 
she  added,  "  it  must  feel  so  long  lying  here  all 
day." 

"  Yes,  it  does,"  said  Kate  —  "  very  long.  I 
hear  you  stirring,  and  going  up  and  down 
stairs,  and  I  try  to  remember  what  it  feels  like 
to  get  about.  I  know  nearly  all  that  goes  on 
by  putting  things  together — footsteps,  and 
knocks  at  the  door,  and  bells  ringing,  and 


TOP    ATTIC   MAKE   FRIENDS.  109 

Mrs.  Baijks  calling  out  on  the  stairs,  and  the 
other  people's  voices ;  and  then  I  think  how 
much  strength  there  is  in  the  world  —  how 
many  people  that  can  walk  about  without  ever 
troubling  to  think  of  it  —  while  I'm  obliged  to 
see  mother  work  for  us  both.  That's  the 
hardest  of  all  to  bear.  She's  getting  old,  and 
it's  heavy  for  her,  though  I'm  not  much  to 
keep.  And  then  I  seem  to  long  for  some  one 
to  come  in  and  say  a  word  to  me  while  she's 
out.  I've  been  wondering  what  sort  you  were ; 
and  just  now  I  heard  you  singing,  all  quiet  to 
yourself,  a  bit  of  a  hymn  like  we  had  at  our 
home  in  the  country,  and  I  said  to  mother, 
Ask  her  to  come  in." 

Martha's  eyes  glistened  with  pleasure.  "  It's 
what  we  had  at  my  home  in  the  country  on 
Christmas-day  —  only  last  Tuesday,"  she  said. 
"  O,  I  wish  you  knew  Winthrop,  and  our 
church  and  Mrs.  Estridge  —  she'd  come  to  see 
you,  and  you'd  like  her  ever  so  much." 

"They  say  there's  a  district  lady  comes 
round  here,"  said  Kate.  "Hannah  told  me 
80 ;  but  Mrs.  Banks  doesn't  care  for  her  com- 


110  MARTHA    AND   THE 

ing  in.  Hannah  said  that  once  she  only  called 
out  to  her  from  the  back  stairs,  '  Nothing  to- 
day, thank  you,'  just  as  if  she'd  been  a  trades- 
person  ;  and  that  she  told  lier  she  needn't 
mind  leaving  books,  as  she  hadn't  time  to 
read  them.  I  wish  district  ladies  would  ask 
for  the  lodgers.  I  asked  Hannah  to  beg  her 
to  come  up  to  me ;  but  she  was  afraid  of  her 
mistress'  scolding  her." 

"I'll  ask  her  to  come  up,"  said  Martha,  with 
the  first  sudden  resolution  that  she  had  ever 
made  in  her  mind.  "I  daresay  it  can  be  man- 
aged ;  and  Kate,  I'd  like  to  look  in  now  and 
then — just  when  I'm  going  by,  and  do  up 
your  fire,  and  tell  you  what  I'm  about.  I'm 
so  sorry  for  you,"  she  added. 

Kate  looked  as  if  the  sympathy  of  the  new 
visitor  was  very  pleasant  to  her.  "  "  I'll  tell 
you  what  I'd  like  you  to  do  now,"  she  said  ; 
"  I'd  like  you  to  sing  that  Christmas  hymn  to 
me,  I  used  to  sing  in  the  choir  in  our  church 
at  home,  and  to  deck  it  up  with  holly  and  ivy ; 
and  then  we  used  to  have  hymns  and  carols 
up  at  the  Rectory.     I  think  of  it  now  some- 


TOP    ATTIC   MAKE    FKIENDS.  Ill 

times  when  the  time  comes  round  ;  and  0, 
Martha,  do  you  know  I'm  sometimes  rebel- 
lious. You  don't  know  what  it's  like  to  see 
mother  work  for  me,  or  to  think  that  if  things 
had  been  different,  I  might  have  kept  well  and 
strong.  I  used  to  read  tracts  about  sick  peo- 
ple, and  now,  do  you  know,  they  sometimes 
make  me  worse.  Those  in  the  tracts  are 
always  good,  and  always  happy,  and  say  they 
don't  feel  lonely,  and  that  they  wouldn't  be 
well  again  if  they  could  ;  and  I'm  quite  differ- 
ent. I'd  give  everything  in  the  world  to  be 
well  again.  I  think  of  it  all  day.  Waking  in 
the  morning's  the  worst  —  waking  up  to  know 
that  I  can't  get  up  —  that  every  day' 11  be  the 
same  till  I  die,  unless  mother  dies  first,  and 
then  I'll  go  to  the  workhouse.  I'd  like  a  book 
about  people  who  are  ill  and  can't  get  about, 
and  are  longing  to  get  well  again." 

Martha  hardly  knew  what  .to  say,  so  she  set 
to  work  at  remembering  the  Christmas  hymn, 
and  Kate  took  up  the  tune  with  a  soft  sweet 
second,  as  far  as  the  words 

"  Life  and  light  to  all  He  brings, 
Shines  with  healing  in  His  wings." 


112  MARTHA    AND    THE 

Then  her  voice  faltered,  as  she  recalled  the 
country  days  of  her  childhood,  and  the  church 
in  which  she  had  formerly  sung  them,  and  she 
whispered  out,  —  "  But  there's  not  the  life  and 
light  and  healing  to  me,  Martha." 

Martha  didn't  know  what  to  say.  The  tears 
were  up  in  her  own  eyes,  as  she  sat  on  the 
floor  by  Kate's  couch.  At  last,  however,  the 
silence  was  broken  by  the  sound  of  the  chimes, 
pouring  in  as  with  comforting  voice  for  the 
weary  girl  lying  there  in  her  sorrow. 

"  They're  just  like  ours  used  to  be  at  Ockley 
Coombe,"  she  said,  seeing  that  Martha  kindled 
at  the  sound. 

"  And  they're  just  like  ours  at  Winthrop," 
echoed  her  companion  joyfully ;  and  then,  as 
if  with  a  new  thought,  she  told  Kate  about 
Mrs.  Estridge,  and  about  the  Unspeakable 
Gift,  and  about  Mary  Lee,  and  about  the  mes- 
sage in  the  letter,  and  how  they  were  to  keep 
the  Christmas  chime  always  going  in  their 
hearts,  and  about  how  she  thought  that  Jesus 
would  help  them  to  do  it  if  they  tried. 

"  And  do  you  keep  it  going?  "  asked  Kate 


TOP    ATTIC    MAKE    FRIENDS.  113 

—  "here  with  all  your  work  to  do,  and  Mrs. 
Banks  after  you  all  day  ?  " 

"I  try  —  at  least,  I  want  to  try,"  was  Mar- 
tha's somewhat  timid  reply.  "  I'm  sure  we 
can,  if  He  helps  us." 

"  It's  easier,  for  people  who  can  get  about," 
said  Kate,  wearily ;  "  I  could,  perhaps,  if  I 
was  strong  again.  I  know  about  it.  Mother's 
a  Christian.  She  prays  by  me  every  night, 
and  leaves  me  the  Bible  to  read  every  morn- 
ing. I  was  confirmed,  and  I  thought  I  was  a 
Christian  too ;  but  when  I  can't  feel  to  say, 
'  Thy  will  be  done,'  I  think  I'm  not.     And  yet 

—  and  yet  —  Martha,  I  long  to  feel  the  Un- 
speakable Gift  like  mother  does ;  and  I  pray 
here,  when  I'm  all  alone,  for  God  to  help  me. 
Sometimes  I  think  if  I  was  in  the  country 
again,  and  still,  I  could  Ije  more  willing ;  and 
at  night  sometimes,  when  I  can't  sleep,  and 
when  I  hear  all  the  roar  of  the  city,  I  look  up 
where  the  stars  are,  and  I  think  it's  all  coun- 
try up  there  —  it's  all  quiet  and  still  u\)  in  the 
sky  —  the  smoke  and  noise  of  the  world  can't 
get  up  there.     And  a  sort  of  peace  comes  into 

8 


114  MARTHA    AND    THE 

my  heart,  thinking  that  He's  there,  and  that 
He'll  care.  But  that's  only  now  and  then," 
she  added,  wearily,  "  and  then  I'm  as  bad  as 
ever." 

"It  must  be  very  hard,"  said  Martha  again  ; 
"  and  yet  —  " 

"  Well ;  and  yet  what  ? " 

"  Why,  if  you  could  keep  the  chime  going 
too,  and  thank  Him  in  your  heart,  it  seems  to 
me  as  if — as  if  He'd  be  so  pleased.  It'll  be 
better  than  mine,  for  He  must  know  how  much 
harder  it  is  for  sick  people.  I  can  fancy  He'd 
like  it  as  much  as  the  angels'  music,  and  it 
would  be  such  a  great  tiling  for  you  to  be 
doing  it  up  here  —  keeping  it  going  in  your 
heart  all  by  yourself." 

Martha  felt  quite  ashamed  at  having  said 
more  than  she  had  ever  said  in  her  life  of 
what  was  in  her  thoughts.  But  the  true 
woman's  nature  of  sympathy  and  tenderness 
had  been  drawn  out  in  hei-  by  the  sight  of 
weariness  and  sickness  ;  and,  moreover,  her 
separation  from  home,  her  being  cut  off  from 
the  lielp  and  encouragement  which  she  had 


TOP   ATTIC   MAKE   FRIENDS.  115 

previously  known,  to  fight  her  way  amongst 
strangers,  had  done  more  in  a  few  days  to 
bring  out  independence  of  tliouglit  and  action 
tlian  had  years  of  her  quiet  Winthrop  life. 
She  sat  quite  still  by  Kate's  side,  wishing  that 
she  could  be  a  comforter  to  her  in  her  trouble, 
mitil  the  warning  sound  of  Mi's.  Banks'  voice, 
as  she  returned  from  her  visits,  roused  her  to 
her  feet. 

But  as  she  wished  her  new  friend  good-bye, 
there  was  a  look  of  more  rest  in  Kate's  face 
than  there  had  been  at  the  first,  and  she  re- 
tm-ned  the  farewell  with  the  words,  "  I'll  try 
too,  Martha.  We'll  both  try  together  to  keep 
the  chime  going  in  our  hearts  —  the  Christmas. 
chime.  You  look  in,  and  remind  me  now  and 
then,  that  I  may  try  and  say  always,  '  Thanks 
be  unto  God  for  His  Unspeakable  Gift.'  I 
believe  it's  a  step  to  saying,  '  Thy  w411  be 
done:'  " 


CHAPTER    VI. 


MARTHA   FINDS   THE   COALS   HEAVIER. 


[OLOMON  said  truly  that  "a  con- 
tinual dropping  in  a  very  rainy 
day  and  a  contentious  woman  are 
alike ; "  but,  if  I  had  my  choice,  I  would 
of  the  two  very  much  prefer  the  rainy  day. 

I  think  Martha  would  have  preferred  it  too  ; 
for,  hard  as  she  worked,  and  earnestly  as  she 
endeavored  to  do  her  best,  Mrs.  Banks  seemed 
to  persist  in  the  belief  that  she  had  on  hand  a 
perpetual  design  of  wrong-doing,  and  that 
nothing  but  a  ceaseless  succession  of  scoldings 
and  threatenings  on  her  part  would  in  any- 
wise prevail  to  keep  her  handmaiden  from 
breaking  dishes,  gossipping  with  the  milkman, 


MARTHA   FINDS  THE   COALS   HEAVIER.      117 

purloining  remains  of  repasts  belonging  to 
the  front  parlors,  neglecting  her  duties  in 
cleaning  and  dusting,  and,  in  fact,  from  com- 
mitting any  misdemeanors  into  which  she 
could  possil^ly  l)e  led  astray. 

Still  the  weeks  passed  on ;  and  it  was  not 
until  she  had  been  for  three  or  four  months  in 
London  that  ]V[artha  began  to  wonder  why  she 
always  felt  tired.  It  seemed  so  odd,  she 
thought ;  and  she  wished  that  it  wasn't  so 
hard  to  get  up  in  the  morning,  an'd  fancied 
that  the  coals  must  be  of  a  heavier  sort  than 
the  first,  only,  then,  the  water  couldn't  have 
grown  heavier  too. 

During  these  weeks  she  had  been  several 
times  to  church  in  the  evening,  Mrs.  Elm- 
hurst  having  come  forward  in  her  belialf,  and 
promised  to  see  to  the  lodgers'  suppers,  if 
Martha  might  be  spared.  And  she  had  gone 
to  the  church  with  the  chimes,  and  had  felt 
home-like  and  happy  as  the  well-known  words 
were  spoken,  and  the  psalm  sung,  which  she 
liked  best  of  all,  in  which  it  says,  "  With  His 
own  right  hand  and  with  His  holy  arm  hath 
He  gotten  Himself  the  victory." 


118  MARTHA    FINDS   THE 

And,  one  evening,  the  festival  shadowed 
forth  in  promise  by  Mrs.  Purkiss  on  her  first 
night  in  London,  came  to  pass ;  and  Eliza 
from  Notting-hill,  and  Jane  from  her  situation 
in  Bloomsbury,  came  to  tea  at  the  house  of 
the  general  decorator's  hospitable  little  wife, 
and  were  regaled,  as  promised,  with  buttered 
toast,  and  with  many  other  good  things. 
jAnd  though  Mrs.  Banks  at  first  steadily  re- 
fused to  give  Martha  an  evening  out,  yet, 
when  Mro.  Purkiss  herself  called  to  proffer 
her  request,  she  at  last  consented  —  only  tak- 
ing out  the  indulgence  granted  to  the  young 
maid-of-all-work  in  a  double  indulgence  of 
her  own  tongue,  and  winding  up  her  scolding 
over  Martha's  first  breakage  with  the  frequent 
threat,  "  Talk  of  going  out  to  tea-parties,  I'll 
tea-party  you  if  I  have  you  coming  to  me  with 
another  glass  broken,  which  it  cost  seven- 
pence  three  farthings,  if  it  cost  a  penny. 
You  mind,  I  shall  stop  it  of  your  quarter's 
wages  the  next  time  you  look  to  be  paid." 

Martha  was  well-pleased  to  see  her  sisters, 
and  to  talk  over  Winthrop  news  with  them ; 


COALS   HEAVIER.  119 

and  she  was  rather  surprised  at  finding  them 
so  tall,  and  with  an  air  of .  experience,  and 
a  fearless  knowledge  of  town  ways,  to  which 
she  thought  it  unlikely  she  could  ever  attain. 
They  told  her  that  she  was  growing  thin,  and 
advised  her  to  better  herself —  an  idea  which 
had  never  for  a  moment  dawned  on  her  mind 
as  a  possibility ;  and  she  thought  of  their 
words  very  deeply  as  she  walked  home ;  but 
the  remembrance  of  Kate  Elmhurst  was 
quite  enough  to  put  such  an  idea  out  of  her 
head. 

J 

For,  indeed,  to  the  invalid  girl  she  had 
come  to  be  such  a  help  and  comfort  as  she 
could  never  have  hoped  to  be  to  anyone.  She 
could  seldom  sit  with  lier,  except  on  Sunday 
afternoons  ;  but  daily,  and  many  times  a  day, 
she  would  look  in  for  a  moment,  make  up  the 
fire,  arrange  her  pillows,  or  speak  a  brave, 
cheery  word  of  comfort,  which  helped  Kate 
to  fight  her  own  harder  battle  —  to  toil  in 
rowing,  though  the  wind  might  be  contrary, 
against  the  waves  and  breakers  which  sur- 
round   the    tranquil    haven    of    resignation. 


120  MAETHA   FINDS   THE 

over  which  is  the  inscription,  "  Thy  will  be 
done." 

Yes,  Martha  was  keeping  the  chime  going 
in  her  heart,  and  it  filled  it  more  than  the 
sound  of  Mrs.  Banks'  voice,  or  than  the  roar 
and  turmoil  of  the  great  city  around  her. 

Then  a  great  joy  had  one  day  come  to 
her  —  a  letter,  bearing  a  Norfolk  postmark, 
and  signed  "  E.  Estridge."  How  Martha's 
heart  throbbed  as  she  read  the  letter!  How 
she  wondered  whether  anyone  in  the  whole  of 
London  could  boast  of  such  a  prize,  and  laid 
it  beside  her  bed  at  night,  and  read  it  when 
she  woke  up  in  the  morning !  How  she 
showed  it  to  Kate  and  her  mother,  and  kept  a 
little  festival  in  her  heart  on  occasion  of  such 
an  accession  to  her  treasures !  How  trifling 
appeared  the  troubles  of  her  everyday  life, 
and  Mrs.  Banks'  scoldings,  and  the  lodgers' 
impatient  rings !  Had  she  not  that  in  her 
possession  which  had  lit  up  quite  an  illumina- 
tion of  joy  and  pleasure  within?  Had  not 
Mrs.  Estridge  —  a  lady,  who  had  so  many  to 
think  of — remembered  her,  Martha  Brooke, 


COALS   HEAVIER,  121 

a  poor,  awkward  maid-of-all-work,  and  cared 
for  her  enough  to  write  her  a  letter  all  for 
herself  ?  Every  word,  as  Martha  said  to  her- 
self, was  written  expressly  for  her ;  she  must 
have  thought  of  her  all  the  time  she  was 
writing  —  all  the  time,  indeed,  that  "  she  was 
making  up  the  letter  to  write  it."  How  could 
she  be  thankful  enough,  or  tell  Mrs.  Estridge 
sufficiently  what  a  bank-note  of  joy  it  had 
been  to  her,  or  make  her  a  little  bit  under- 
stand, what  she  would  have  been  far  too  shy 
to  say  in  woMs,  that  she  thought  of  her 
and  prayed  for  her  day  and  night ;  that  the 
remembrance  of  every  word  she  had  ever 
spoken  to  her  was  in  her  heart;  that  the 
thought  of  those  words  was  helping  her  on 
in  her  fight  and  in  her  struggle  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian, even  when  it  was  hardest ;  that  to  be 
with  her  once  more  was  her  dearest  earthly 
wish,  cherished  in  the  midst  of  much  clean- 
ing and  scrubbing  by  day,  and  of  Winthrop 
dreams  by  night. 

The  letter  which  so  filled  Martha's  heart 
with  rejoicing  was  as  follows:  — 


122  MAETHA    FINDS   THE 

"  WiNTHROP  Rectory,  March  27. 
"Dear  Martha, 

"  I  am  sure  you  are  often  thinking  of 

Winthrop  and  of  all  your  friends  here  ;  and  I 

think  it  will  please  you  to  have  a  few  lines 

from  me,  to  tell  you  that  we  remember  you, 

and  talk  of  you  very  often  too.     I  was  with 

your  mother  a  few  days  ago,  and  she  told  me 

that  she  had  heard  from  you,  and  that  you 

were  in  the  same  place  in  Southwark  to  which 

you   went   at   first ;    and  that   you  had  seen 

Eliza  and  Jane,  and  that  they  were  both  well. 

I  am  so  glad  that  you  have  met,  for  London 

is  such  a  great  city,  that  I  can  ^ncy  your 

feeling   a   little   bit   sorrowful  and  lonely  at 

having  no  one  belonging  to  you  at  hand. 

"  We  think  of  you  so  often  in  the  Bible 

class,  and   I   miss   your  voice   in   the   choir 

on  Sundays,  and  hope  that  some  day  or  other, 

when  you  get  a  holiday,  I  shall  have  you  with 

me  again.     I  have  taken  Kezia  into  the  Bible 

class  now,  and  I  think  your  brother  Willy  will 

be  able  to  join  the  singing-class  by-and-bye. 

I   do   not  think   there  have  been  any  other 


COALS   HEAVIER.  123 

changes  since  you  left  home.  Spring  is  be- 
ginning to  appear  even  in  onr  cold  part  of 
the  world ;  and  Miss  Gracie  has  just  brought 
me  in  some  violets,  of  which  I  send  you  a  few 
as  messengers  from  Winthrop. 

"  And  now,  dear  Martha,  I  must  tell  you 
how  earnestly  I  desire  for  you  that,  though 
separated  from  your  friends  here,  you  may 
feel  that  the  true  and  unchanging  Friend 
is  always  near  you.  I  daresay  things  are  not 
always  smooth  with  you  —  He  often  sees  it 
good  for  US'  that  we  should  be  led  in  rough 
paths ;  but  if  we  give  our  hands  into  His, 
He  will  show  us  that  He  is  leading  us  forth 
by  the  right  way  to  the  city  of  habitation. 
Never  be  satisfied  with  just  being  called  a 
Christian  —  with  merely  knowing  about  Christ, 
instead  of  knowing  him  for  your  own  Saviour. 
It  makes  everything  so  different  when  we 
think  all  day  long,  '  I  may  do  this  for  Jesus. 
I  may  get  through  my  common  every-day 
work  well,  and  with  all  my  heart,  to  please 
Him.  I  may  refuse  to  speak  this  angry  word, 
because  He  would  not  like  it.'     I  find  that 


124  MARTHA    FINDS  THE 

this  thought  helps  me  in  my  work,  and  I  like 
to  think  that  you  and  I  are  together  in  trying 
to  serve  Him  and  love  Him  and  please  Him, 
and  I  hope  that  we  shall  be  together  with  Him 
in  heaven.  I  think  I  must  give  you  this  mes- 
sage before  I  close: — 'To  him  that  over- 
cometh  will  I  give  a  crown  of  life.' 

"  I  have  only  time  to  say  that  Mr.  Estridge 
sends  you  his  best  wishes,  and  to  remain, 
dear  Martha, 

"  Your  very  true  friend, 

"  E.  Estridge." 

It  was  not  a  long  letter,  but  there  was  that 
in  it  which  filled  the  young  servant  with  sur- 
prise and  joy.  That  she  and  Mrs.  Estridge 
should  be  together  in  anything  —  that  she 
should  write  as  if  they  two  were  fighting  side 
by  side,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  in  Jesus  Christ's 
army  —  seemed  quite  a  fresh  spring  of  happi- 
ness. And  then  those  violets  !  To  think  of 
her  putting  them  into  the  letter,  just  as  if 
she  had  been  writing  to  a  lady  like  herself ! 
Winthrop  violets,   gathered   by   Miss   Grace, 


COALS   HEAVIER.  125 

and  actually  sent  to  her  by  Mrs.  Estridge. 
The  Queen  herself,  if  on  terms  of  correspond- 
ence with  the  Rector's  wife  (and  Martha 
would  not  have  been  at  all  surprised  had  this 
been  the  case),  could  not  be  treated  more  con- 
siderately. The  violets  were  put  into  warm 
water,  and  revived,  and  were  kept  in  Kate's 
room  for  a  little  while,  and  then  were  taken 
away  and  dried,  and  put  in  Martha's  Bible  as 
precious  relics. 

And  Mrs.  Estridge's  letter  did  yet  more  for 
the  country  girl.  There  was  something  in  its 
tone  which  roused  her  self-respect.  Uncon- 
sciously, there  came  to  her  a  touch  of  womanly 
dignity,  so  that  Kate  and  her  mother  said  she 
had  grown  ever  so  much  older  in  her  ways, 
and  Mrs.  Banks  now  and  then  asked  herself 
what  it  was  about  the  girl  that  was  different 
from  others.  Mrs.  Estridge's  words,  telling 
her  that  she  was  missed  at  Winthroj),  had  a 
great  deal  to  say  to  it ;  but  a  sense  of  com- 
munion and  kinship  with  a  higher  Friend,  far 
more  than  anything  else,  seemed  to  keep  Mar- 
tha in  a  pavilion  from  the  strife  of  tongues, 


126  MARTHA   FINDS   THE 

and  to  lift  her  heart  now  and  then  into  a  sense 
of  unspeakable  quietness  and  peace. 

And  so,  as  we  have  said,  winter  was  giving 
place  to  spring,  and  violets,  and  sickly-looking 
primroses,  with  blacks  from  London  chimneys 
falling  thickly  upon  them,  instead  of  the  dews 
of  the  country,  were  being  sold  in  the  streets ; 
and  Martha  was  beginnijig  to  find  that  the 
stairs  were  steep  and  the  coals  heavy,  and  the 
water-cans  heavier  still. 

One  very  pleasant  thing  had  come  to  pass  ; 
she  had  found  courage,  much  to  her  own 
astonishment,  to  ask  the  district  lady  to  walk 
up  and  pay  Kate  Elmhurst  a  visit,  and  the  lat- 
ter had  discovered  that  Miss  Armitaare  had 
been  in  Somersetshire,  and  knew  Ockley 
Coombe,  and  had  loved  her  directly.  And 
her  visitor  had  spoken  to  her  words  such  as 
Kate  most  specially  needed  concerning  the 
high  dignity  of  suffering  and  of  patient  en- 
durance and  of  cross-bearing,  when  the  love 
of  Jesus  is  in  our  hearts,  and  had  reminded 
her  that  we  are  not  to  cast  the  cross  and  carry 
the  care,  but  to  bear  the  cross  and  cast  the 


COALS   HEAVIER.  127 

care  on  Him  who  careth  for  us.  And  then 
Kate  told  her  about  Martha ;  and,  little  by 
little,  a  firm  league  and  covenant  was  estab- 
lished between  the  top  attics  and  Miss  Armi- 
tage,  who  used  to  find  opportunities  of  saying 
a  kind  word  or  two  to  the  young  servant  as 
she  passed  her  at  her  work,  and  who  one  day 
brought  the  good  news  that  she  had  found  a 
better  place  for  Mrs.  Elmhurst,  with  employers 
who  would,  when  possible,  allow  her  to  bring 
her  work  home.  After  this,  for  two  days  in 
every  week,  Kate  had  her  mother  with  her. 

It  was  a  Sunday  evening,  soon  after  Easter, 
and  Martha  had  somewhat  wearily  found  her 
way  to  church.  She  could  not  think  why  she 
felt  so  tired,  or  why  everything  in  the  service 
seemed  to  be  going  on  outside  her  like  a 
dream;  and  then,  when  the  sermon  began,  she 
found  that  her  eyes  were  growing  very  heavy, 
and  gradually  everything  faded  away  into  a 
confused  vision  of  Winthrop,  and  Mill  Street, 
and  Mrs.  Banks ;  while  the  organ  in  the 
church  sounded  like  a  storm  threatening  to 
burst  over  her  head. 


128  MARTHA    FINDS   THE 

When  Mrs.  Crummie,  the  pew-opener,  made 
her  rounds,  after  service  was  over,  to  put  out 
lights,  to  shut  pew-doors,  and  to  take  into  cus- 
tody stray  pocket-handkerchiefs  and  smelling- 
bottles  which  might  have  been  left  behind,  she 
was  surprised  to  find  Martha,  whom  she  had 
noticed  as  a  reverent,  quiet  attendant  at 
church,  fast  asleep  in  the  corner  of  one  of  the 
free  seats. 

In  Mrs.  Ci'ummie's  composition  two  some- 
times conflicting  natures  were  strongly  devel- 
oped :  as  a  woman,  she  looked  compassionately 
on  the  weary  face  ;  as  a  pew-opener,  she  felt  it 
her  duty  to  regard  the  matter  of  going  to  sleep 
in  church  from  an  official  point  of  view. 

"  Young  woman,"  she  said,  in  a  serious  tone 
—  "young  w6man,  you'd  better  wake  up." 
Then,  when  Martha  hastily  started,  being 
touched  by  Mrs.  Crummie  on  the  shoulder, 
she  was  unable  to  resist  a  kindly  impulse  to 
add,  "  You're  very  tired,  my  dear ;  you'd  best 
go  home  and  get  to  sleep." 

"  I  suppose  I  am,"  returned  Martha,  rousing 
up,  and  then,  realizing  where  she  was,  adding 


COALS    HEAVIER.  129 

humbly,  "  I  beg  your  pardon,  ma'am  ;  I  can't 
think  what  came  over  me  to  make  me  so  tired. 
1  don't  think  I  ever  went  to  sleep  in  church 


before. 


55 


"  It's  a  bad  habit,"  said  Mrs.  Crummie, 
speaking  then  as  a  pew-opener  ;  "  I  always  say 
Eutychus  is  an  example  to  such  as  does. 
Think  if  you  was  in  a  front  gallery,  or  even  in 
the  body,  instead  of  free  seats,  how  bad  it 
would  look !  Indeed,  I  don't  like  to  see  it  any- 
where along  my  aisle,  and  there  isn't  need 
with  such  a  minister  as  ours.  This  looks  as 
if  it  belonged  to  one  of  the  pews  in  the  body," 
she  continued,  darting  at  a  pocket-handker- 
chief which  had  been  dropped  by  some  passer- 
by ;  "  hem-stitched  and  scented,  and  '  Rosalie  ' 
worked  in  flowers  round  the  name ;  that's  no 
free-seat  handkerchief,  and  it'll  have  to  be 
claimed  next  Sunday." 

By  which  time  Mrs.  Crummie  and  Martha 
were  out  in  the  porch,  and  the  good  lady  was 
no  longer  a  pew-opener,  but  a  kind"^ motherly 
little  woman  who  told  Martha  she  looked  so 
tired  that  she'd  like  to  take  her  home  and  give 


130  MARTHA    FINDS   THE 

her  a  cup  of  tea  if  her  house  were  not  too  far 
off;  failing  which,  she  announced  her  deter- 
mination to  walk  with  her  as  far  as  Mill 
Street,  "  for  you  look  most  worn  out,  my  dear  ; 
that's  what  you  do." 

"  I  feel  queer  all  over  to-night,"  said  Mar- 
tha ;  "  1  can't  make  it  out ;  my  knees  seem  to 
give  in,  and  things  seem  going  round  in  my 
head  —  " 

"  It's  a  chill,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Crummie, 
confidently  ;  "  chamomile  tea,  warm,  or  a  little 
gruel,  and  a  hot  bath  going  to  bed,  '11  set  you 
up  if  anything  will." 

"  I  don't  know,"  answered  Martha  ;  "  I'm 
not  sure  whether  lying  quiet  isn't  what  I  seem 
to  want  most,  if  missus  will  let  me  go  to 
bed." 

"You're  tired  out  —  that's  what  you  are," 
repeated  good  Mrs.  Crummie,  looking  her  com- 
panion full  in  the  face  as  they  passed  a  lamp- 
post ;  "I  believe  that  quiet  and  a  glass  of 
wine,  now,  elder  wine,  warmed,  with  a  little 
spice  in  it,  would  be  as  good  as  the  chamomile 
tea  for  you." 


COALS    HEAVIER.  131 

Martha  inwardly  thought  it  might  be  much 
better,  and  went  on  to  imagine  what  Mrs. 
Banks'  reception  of  a  request  for  elder  wine, 
with  a  little  spice  in  it,  might  be,  should  the 
idea  be  brought  before  her ;  and  then,  as  she 
came  to  the  door,  she  thanked  her  new  friend 
for  the  kindness,  and  with  what  strength  she 
had  got  up  the  steps  into  the  house. 

"'Poor  thing!"  said  Mrs.  Crummie  to  her- 
self, "  she's  getting  done  up  like  most  of  them. 
If  only  mothers  knew  what  girls  have  to  meet 
of  overwork  in  them  lodging-houses,  they 
wouldn't  send  them  off  all  alone  and  unbe- 
friended  like.  I  know  I  wouldn't  if  I  had  a 
girl  of  my  own." 

Whereupon  Mrs.  Crummie  went  home,  and 
had  a  little  Sunday  supper  over  the  fire  which 
had  been  expected  to  keep  itself  in  her  ab- 
sence, and  which  had  answered  to  the  expec- 
tation, and  found  out  the  clergyman's  text  in 
the  large  Bible  by  the  help  of  her  spectacles  ; 
having  done  which,  she  went  to  bed. 

Martha  meantime  asked  herself  whether  the 
world  and  the  people  in  it  were  always  divided 


132  MARTHA    FINDS   THE 

into  three  divisions,  first  class,  second  class, 
and  third  class  ;  parlors,  up-stairs,  and  attics  ; 
body,  gallery,  and  free-seats  —  Miss  Graham 
and  Rosalie  in  the  first,  and  maids-of-all-work 
in  the  last ;  and  then  she  felt  a  difficulty  in 
getting  to  her  room,  and  had  to  call  Mrs.  Elm- 
hurst  to  her  aid,  and  had  a  strange  weary 
night  of  tossing  and  sleeplessness,  and  in  the 
morning  was  obliged  to  own  that  she  could 
not  get  up,  and  lay  still,  wondering  whether 
she  was  very  ill,  and  what  could  be  the  matter, 
and  in  a  confused  way  hoping  that  some  one 
would  get  the  lodgers  their  breakfasts,  and 
that  Mrs.  Banks  would  not  turn  her  out  of 
doors  because  she  could  not  work. 

Mrs.  Banks  was,  however,  very  angry.  She 
had  no  notion  of  any  people  under  front  par- 
lors giving  themselves  airs  and  taking  to  their 
beds,  and  declared  that  Martha  should  go  at 
once  to  the  Hospital,  fur  which  she  would  get 
a  ticket  that  morning  through  the  district 
lady.  "  For,"  she  added,  "  district  ladies  is 
good  for  some  things,  which  one  never  sees 
one  coming  along  without  a  look  in  her  face 


COALS    HEAVIER.  133 

and  outward  garments  telling  of  an  insight 
into  coals  and  blankets  snch  as  is  right  for  the 
poor,  not  to  mention  letters  for  hospitals  if 
such  can  be  got  for  those  as  should  be  sent 
there." 

But  it  so  happened  —  how  Martha  could 
hardly  make  out  —  that  Miss  Armitage's  visit 
did  not  result  in  sending  her  to  the  hospital, 
and  that  Mrs.  Banks  remembered  how  a  niece 
of  hers  "  by  the  name  of  Sarah  Ann  was  look- 
ing out  to  better  herself,  and  might  come  in 
for  a  week  or  so  to  take  the  other  girl's  place 
if  she  chose  to  make  haste  and  get  about 
again ; "  and  that  Mi-s.  Elmhurst's  work  was 
brought  home  oftener  than  twice  a  week,  so 
that  she  was  able  to  care  for  Martha  more 
kindly  than  she  had  ever  been  cared  for 
before. 

Her  mistress  only  once  came  upstairs  to  re- 
proach her  for  "  taking  on,"  and  to  "  wonder 
what  girls  was  made  of  that  they  nnist  turn 
fine  ladies  after  a  week's  ])ustlhig  a1)0ut ;  "  at 
the  conclusion  of  whicli  sti-ain  of  exhortation, 
even  Mrs.  Banks  was  impelled  l)y  the  sight  of 


134  MARTHA    FINDS   THE 

the  pale,  weary  face  beneath  her  to  wind  up  in 
somewhat  gentler  fashion,  "  which  neverthe- 
less if  you'll  be  a  good  girl  and  pluck  up  pretty 
soon,  I'll  keep  the  place  open  for  you  without 
making  any  change.  Sarah  Ann,  now,  she's 
as  strong  as  a  church-pillar,  but  she's  as  hard 
to  move,  and  as  hardened  to  waste  and  riot. 
Though  she's  my  own  flesh  and  blood,"  con- 
tinued her  relative,  with  quite  a  virtuous  tone 
of  condemnation  in  her  voice,  "  I  couldn't  say 
nothing  else  of  lier.  It  was  only  yesterday 
evening  I  found  her  eating  hot  toast  and  but- 
ter ;  which  I  toast-and-buttered  her  pretty  well, 
I  can  tell  you." 

And  this  confidence  to  Martha  concerning 
Sarah  Ann's  taste  for  toast  and  butter  —  al- 
though the  illustration  hurriedly  selected  of 
the  church-pillar  was  difficult  to  carry  out  in 
all  its  bearings  —  seemed  to  form  quite  a  link 
in  Mrs.  Banks'  estimation  between  herself  and 
her  young  servant ;  and  she  left  the  latter 
greatly  cheered,  and  with  a  hope  that  her  mis- 
tress would  for  this  once  pass  over  her  "taking 
on  and  being  ill." 


COALS    HEAVIER.  135 

Then  followed  a  very  peaceful  foi-tnight  in 
the  region  of  the  top-attics.  Martha  was 
astonished  to  find  that  she  had  so  many 
friends  in  London.  For  kind  little  Mrs.  Pur- 
kiss  came  to  see  her,  having  heard  of  her  be- 
ing ill  through  Mrs.  Elmhurst,  who  had  one 
day  left  word  of  the  same  at  the  general  deco- 
rator's :  and  she  brought  with  her  a  nice  cup 
of  jelly,  and  some  eggs  laid  by  her  own  fowls, 
and  a  general  atmosphere  of  cheeriness  and 
hopefulness  which  seemed  to  fill  the  room  like 
a  fresh  breeze.  And  then  Eliza,  her  own  sis- 
ter, came  to  visit  her  ;  and  Mrs.  Banks  was 
quite  surprised  to  find  that  Martha's  sister  was 
so  capable  a  young  servant,  "  holding  a  posi- 
tion," as  she  expressed  it  afterwards  to  Mrs. 
Smythe,  "in  a  first-rate  family:"  and  Eliza 
was  for  writing  home  to  Winthrop ;  but  Mar- 
tha did  not  wish  to  "  put  them  about  just  for 
her." 

And  after  a  few  days,  she  was  able  to  go 
into  Kate's  room,  and  to  lie  on  the  bed  there, 
and  read  with  her,  and  talk  ^vith  her,  and  now 
and    ther    to   sleep    quite    undisturbedly   for 


136      MARTHA    FINDS    THE    COALS    HEAVIER. 

hours,  while  rest  did  its  work  towards  restor- 
ing her  strength.  And  the  spring  breezes 
came  in  at  the  window,  bringing  messages, 
Kate  said,  from  Somersetshire,  and  Martha 
said,  from  Norfolk  ;  and  young  sparrows  twit- 
tered on  tlie  roofs ;  and  often  Miss  Armitage 
came  to  them,  and  sometimes  sang  to  the  two 
girls,  while  their  voices  joined  in  with  hers,  so 
that,  as  she  observed,  "  they  made  quite  a 
choir  ;  "  and  the  chimes  now  and  then  sounded 
through  the  upper  chamber,  so  that  when  Mar- 
tha was  able  once  more  to  go  to  her  work,  and 
to  return  to  the  hurry  and  bustle  downstairs, 
it  seemed  to  her  as  if  a  quiet  restful  time  of 
peace  were  over  to  which  she  would  look  back 
always  as  to  a  Sunday  in  her  life. 


CHAPTER    VI I. 


MARTHA  HAS  VISITORS. 


jT  happened  shortly  after  that  Mrs. 
Banks  was  laid  up  ;  and  very  much 
was  she  surprised  at  herself  for 
being  thus  subjected  to  the  ricissitudes  of  life 
like  any  one  else.  And  one  morning  Martha 
came  into  Mrs.  Elmhurst,  imploring  her  to  see 
about  the  front  parlor's  breakfast,  as  her  mis- 
tress said  she  was  "  all  of  one  throb,"  and 
couldn't  fancy  anything  Ijut  a  cup  of  tea, 
which  she  must  Ijring  up  to  her  at  once.  Af- 
ter which,  she  was  sent  forth  to  secure  once 
more  the  services  of  Sarah  Ann,  who,  it  ap- 
peared, had   not  yet   succeeded    in   bettering 


138  MARTHA    HAS    VISITORS. 

herself,  and  who  was  invited  to  come  and  help 
in  the  house,  there  being,  however,  a  distinct 
clause  in  the  agreement  whereby  she  was  to 
hold  herself  bound  honorably  to  abstain  from 
any  recurring  temptations  to  hidulgence  in 
buttered  toast. 

It  was  wonderful,  everybody  said,  how  well 
the  house  went  on.  New  responsibilities 
seemed  to  develop  in  Martha  qualities  of  self- 
reliance  and  quiet  womanly  capability  which, 
at  first  sight,  her  friends  would  hardly  have 
suspected  her  of  possessing;  and  people  re- 
flected that  her  mistress  gave  herself  much 
unnecessary  expense  in  the  matter  of  words, 
as  things  settled  themselves  in  quite  a  satis- 
factory manner  without  there  seeming  to  be 
any  necessity  for  so  much  scolding  about 
them. 

I  think  that  a  perpetual  liability  to  being 
scolded  and  found  fault  with  has  one  of  two 
effects.  Either  it  hardens  the  temper  into  a 
sort  of  dull  or  impatient  sullenness  ;  or  it  ren- 
ders it,  from  the  very  fact  of  constant  suffer- 
ing, tender   and  considerate   in  all   dealings 


MARTHA    HAS    VISITORS.  139 

with  others,  which  may  possibly  be  the  result 
of  experimentally  knowing  the  value  of  a  kind 
and  sympathizing  word.  The  last  of  these 
two  effects  showed  itself  in  Martha's  conduct 
towards  her  small  world  without ;  so  that 
Kate,  upstairs,  and  Sarah  Jane,  down-stairs, 
thought  a  great  deal  more  of  our  Norfolk 
maiden's  presence  than  she  at  all  suspected. 

And  in  one  of  these  days,  a  sudden  and  un- 
wonted knock  brought  her  hastily  to  the  house- 
door,  and  with  an  almost  cry  of  surprise,  she 
found  herself  face  to  face  with  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Estridge,  who,  standing  on  the  door-step,  and 
wearing  respectively  hat  and  coat,  and  bonnet 
and  shawl,  were,  she  immediately  concluded, 
not  a  vision,  but  actual  Winthrop  realities. 

What  a  comfort  that  Mrs.  and  Miss  Smythe 
were  out  for  the  day,  and  that  Martha  could 
fearlessly  show  her  visitors  into  their  parlor ! 
What  a  comfort  that  Sarah  Ann  Av^as  well-dis- 
posed towards  her,  and,  having  listened  at  the 
bottom  of  the  stairs  to  the  strange  greetings, 
was  prepared  to  answer  Martha's  hurried  whis- 
per down  the  same  flight,  "  You'll  turn  the 


140  MARTHA    HAS    VISITORS. 

joint,   won't  you  ? "    with    a    comprehensive 
"  All  right,  I'll  see  to  everything !  " 

And  then  the  Winthrop  girl  went  in  to  the 
front  parlor,  and  realized  that  to  see  her,  Mar- 
tha Brooke,  these  friends  had  come  miles 
across  London  —  that  nothing  else  had  brought 
them  down  into  Southwark  but  the  desire  to 
visit  and  cheer  the  young  maid-of-all-work, 
"  whom  they  had  not  forgotten,"  as  she  said  to 
herself,  "  in  all  their  greatness." 

0  if  only  she  were  less  tongue-tied !  0  if 
only  she  could  tell  Mrs.  Estridge  how  she 
thanked  her,  and  loved  her,  and  cared  for  her ! 
As  it  Avas,  she  could  only  muster  courage  to 
ask  for  her  parents,  and  to  utter  confused 
words  of  humble  gratitude,  and  then,  all  of  a 
sudden  —  she  supposed  because  she  had  been 
ill  and  was  still  weak  and  foolish  —  she  found, 
as  she  thanked  Mrs.  Estridge  for  the  photo- 
graph she  had  brought  her  of  Winthrop 
church,  that  her  voice  was  getting  beyond 
control,  and  that  tears  were  coming  thickly 
into  her  eyes,  and  a  hurried  sob  or  two  for  a 
minute  entirely  checked  every  possibility  of 
utterance. 


MARTHA    HAS    VISITORS.  141 

Then  her  frieiids  talked  to  her,  and  Mrs. 
Estridge  told  her  Winthrop  news  of  her  class 
companions,  and  of  her  brothers  and  sisters ; 
and  after  awhile,  she  found  herself  able  to 
speak  more  freely ;  and  when  they  thought 
that  she  looked  thin  and  worn,  she  told  them 
how  she  had  been  ill,  and  about  Miss  Armitage 
and  Kate  and  Mrs.  Elmhurst ;  and  at  last, 
actually  found  herself  saying  how  she  had 
missed  her  Winthrop  Sundays,  and  longed  to 
be  once  more  at  the  Rectory  class. 

"  But  you  keep  up  ? "  answered  Mrs.  Es- 
tridge, with  her  hand  upon  her  shoulder  in  the 
same  kindly  fashion  which  she  remembered  so 
well  and  had  thought  of  so  often,  "  You  are 
trying  to  serve  Jesus  Christ,  dear  child,  and  to 
be  His  faithful  soldier  and  servant  in  all  the 
busy  hurry  and  work  of  your  life  ?  I  hope  you 
are  looking  to  Him,  Martha." 

And  then  with  a  sort  of  smile  through  her 
tears,  Martha  looked  up,  and  said,  "  I'm  trying 
to  keep  the  Christmas  chimes  going  in  my 
heart,  like  the  message  said  that  you  gave  us, 
ma'am ;  sometimes  when  I'm  dull  and  tired  I 


142  MARTHA    HAS    VISITORS. 

feel  as  if  I  must  give  in ;  but  then  I  say  to 
myself  I'm  to  keep  it  always  going  —  'Thanks 
DO  to  God  for  His  Unspeakable  Gift'  —  and 
that  seems  to  set  me  up." 

The  visit  did  not  end  in  the  front  parlor. 
Martha  brought  them  to  see  Kate,  and  Kate's 
eyes  lighted  up  when  she  knew  who  the  visitors 
were,  and  while  Mr.  Estridge  talked  to  the 
girls  about  the  struggle  and  the  weariness  and 
the  difficulties  here  which  are  but  for  a  little 
while,  and  about  the  great  joy  laid  up  which  is 
reserved  unto  the  Lord's  people  for  ever.  And 
then  he  knelt  down,  and  thanked  God  for  the 
Unspeakable  Gift,  and  asked  that  they  might 
always  be  living  as  those  who  have  tasted  of 
eternal  life  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  and 
prayed  for  the  sick,  and  the  weary,  and  the 
hard-working,  that  they  might  come  unto  Him 
and  find  rest  for  their  souls.  And  then  that 
golden  hour  in  Martha's  life  came  to  an  end, 
and  her  friends  left  her  ;  and  she  watched 
them,  until,  turning  round  the  corner  of  Mill 
Street,  they  nodded  a  last  good-bye  to  her,  and 
went  their  way. 


MARTHA    HAS    VISITORS.  143 

And  Martha  went  back  to  her  work ;  and 
found  that  Sarah  Ann  had  been  true  to  her 
and  to  the  joint,  and  that  it  was  time  to  lay 
the  cloth  in  the  front  parlor. 

As  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Estridge  walked  away  they 
were  for  a  few  minutes  very  silent.  Then  Mr. 
Estridge  looked  into  his  wife's  face,  and  saw 
that  her  eyes  were  full  of  tears. 

"  Good  little  Martha !  "  he  said  ;  "  how  lit- 
tle one  could  expect  to  find  such  a  girl  out  of 
the  Brookes'  cottage." 

"  Charles,"  answered  his  wife,  after  a  pause, 
"  I  feel  as  if  Martha  had  taught  me  more  than 
I  ever  taught  her,  I  shall  never  hear  our 
Winthrop  bells  now  without  thinking  of  her, 
in  all  the  hurry  and  care  of  that  rough  life  of 
hers  trying  to  keep  the  Christmas  chimes  ring- 
ing. It  will  help  me  to  do  it  when  I  think  of 
her.  If  only  —  if  only  one  could  think  every 
day  more  of  the  greatness  of  the  Unspeakable 
Gift!" 


iV^^^i^^^^J^^ 


CHAPTER   YIII. 


LAST  WORDS. 


KNOW  that  my  story  may  be  called 
unfinished.  It  is  so  because  it  is 
true.  In  a  busy  and  thronged  Lon- 
don district,  and  in  a  busy  and  thronged 
house,  a  little  maid-of-all-work  is  still  trying 
to  keep  the  chime  going  in  her  heart  —  is  still 
tryipg  to  show  forth  praise  not  only  with  her 
lips,  but  in  her  life. 

And  would  not  this  busy  and  thronged 
world,  this  great  lodging-house  in  which  for  a 
time  we  have  our  habitation,  be  to  many  who 
read  these  pages  a  happier  and  a  better  place 
could  they  have  constantly  in  their  minds  the 
greatness  of  the  "•  Unspeakable  Gift,"  the  be- 
lief in  a  real  present,  living,  loving  Saviour ; 


LAST   WORDS.  145 

could  they,  too,  keep  the  chimes  of  joy  and 
thanksgiving  always  ringing  ? 

Busy  workers^  in  whatever  station  of  life 
you  may  be  placed,  who  have  found  time  to 
read  these  words,  shall  not  they  sound  in 
your  hearts  ?  There  is  room  in  them  for  the 
clang  and  uproar  of  the  world's  noise  and 
tumult :  is  there  not  room  for  the  sweet 
cadence  of  peace  and  thanksgiving  which 
follows  the  admission  of  Jesus,  and  which 
rings  in  the  true  Christmas-tide  of  the  soul  ? 
It  may  be  that  you  are  at  the  head  of  a  family, 
and  have  calls  and  claims  and  interruptions 
on  every  side,  and  "  many  coming  and  going," 
so  that  sometimes  you  seem  to  have  "  no 
leisure  to  tarry  so  much  as  to  eat."  Or  it 
may  be  that  you  are  a  servant,  always  busy, 
often  tired,  sometimes  overtasked  ;  or  possi- 
bly you  are  a  boy  or  girl  at  school,  and  have 
your  time  portioned  out  for  you,  and  find  that 
every  moment  is  fully  occupied.  Still,  let  the 
chime  ring  in  your  hearts.  Ask  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  to  come  to  you  Himself.  Make 
time  for  Him,  for  whatever  else  you  may  find 

10 


146  LAST   WORDS. 

no  leisure.  "  What  shall  it  profit  a  man 
if  he  shall  gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his 
own  soul  ?  "  He  wants  to  be  the  Friend  of 
your  busy  hours.  He  wants  to  make  your 
work  light  by  making  your  heart  light.  He 
wants  to  make  your  common  every-day  service 
holy  and  beautiful  and  happy  service,  by  let- 
ting you  do  all  as  for  Him.  He  wants  to 
share,  and  help  you,  in  all  your  work,  and 
to  prove  to  you  that  He  is  a  true  and  present 
Saviour. 

It  may  be  that  you  are  specially  e/igaged.  in 
sacred  work ;  that  you  are  a  teacher,  a  district 
visitor,  a  much-employed  vineyard  laborer. 
O,  should  not  ithose  thus  occupied  be  very 
earnest  in  making  sure  that  the  chime  is  ring- 
ing in  their  hearts  ?  Is  not  something  of  the 
peace  which  should  come  with  the  constantly 
realized  possession  of  the  Unspeakable  Gift 
cridangered  by  the  too  great  hurry  of  our 
days  —  by  the  effort  to  crowd  too  much  into 
already  fully  employed  hours  —  by  the  mis- 
taken idea  that  to  do  much  for  Christ  is  the 
same  thing  as  keeping  near  to  Christ  ?     It  is 


LAST   WORDS.  147 

when  we  have  time  to  be  still,  when  the  world 
is  shut  out,  when  our  work  is  brought  to  Him 
in  prayer,  when  the  unseen  things  of  eternity- 
are  the  vividly  seen  things  of  our  souls,  when 
"  there  is  no  man  found  with  us  save  Jesus 
only,"  that  the  clear  notes  of  thanksgiving- 
swell  most  joyfully  through  our  hearts,   and 

"  Sound  like  the  benediction 
Which  follows  aftei'  prayer." 

Perhaps  you  may  be  reading  this  on  a  sick- 
bed. It  may  he  that  you  are  an  invalid,  con- 
fined to  a  couch  from  which  you  will  never 
again  rise  to  health  and  strength,  or  suffering 
in  a  hospital,  or  weak  and  failing,  and  unable 
for  all  the  work  without,  which  you  are  long- 
ing to  undertake,  and  Avhich  may  even  be  left 
undone  because  you  cannot  do  it.  I  think 
that  for  you  it  is  hardest  of  all  to  keep  the 
chimes  ^"oing.  I  think  that  to  you,  if  you 
seek  to  turn  mourning  into  thankfulness,  the 
message  will  be  most  specially  sent,  "  He  that 
offereth  me  praise,  he  honoreth  me."  I 
I  hardly   know   any   victory   of  faith  so  great 


148  LAST   WORDS. 

as  that  won  by  Christ's  servants  when  they 
are  able  to  rejoice  in  tribulation ;  in  weakness 
to  obtain  strength  ;  in  weariness  to  lean  on  an 
unseen  Saviour ;  during  sleepless  nights  to 
look  beyond  to  the  everlasting  rest ;  when  all 
around  them  are  busy  and  in  health,  to  whis- 
per, "Even  so,  Father;"  to  pray,  saying, 
"  Thy  will  be  done,"  and  to  exchange  the  sad 
minor  strain,  "  My,  purposes  are  broken  off," 
for  the  trustful  song  of  assurance  : 

"  His  purposes  will  ripen  fast, 
Unfolding  every  hour : 
The  bud  may  have  a  bitter  taste, 
But  sweet  will  be  the  flower." 

It  is  no  light  service  which  you  are  offering  to 
Jesus,  dear  brother  or  sister,  in  your  hour  of 
weakness,  if  you  are  able  to  cry,  "  Though  He 
slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  Him,"  if  you  are 
t-ejoicing  in  the  Unspeakable  Gift,  and  keeping 
the  chime  of  thanksgiving  always  ^  ringing 
in  your  heart. 

Perhaps  you  are  poor.  Possibly  you  find  it 
hard  to  keep  down  anxious  fears  concerning  a 
coming  year,  or  an   impending   difficulty,  or 


r 


LAST   WOEDS.  149 

to  check  forebodings  which  will  arise  in  yonr 
heart  when  but  little  comes  in,  and  there  seem 
to  crowd  upon  you  increasing  claims  for  what 
you  have.  Then,  if  you  have  the  Unspeaka- 
ble Gift,  you  may  take  the  children's  privilege, 
and  expect  your  Father  to  care  for  you.  A 
good  man  once  said,  "  On  the  forehead  of 
every  one  of  God's  people  are  inscribed  the 
words.  To  be  provided  for.''  Only  trust. 
"  He  that  spared  not  His  own  Son,  but 
delivered  Him  up  for  us  all,  how  shall  He  not 
with  Him  freely  also  give  us  all  things  ? " 
If  you  have  Christ,  though  having  nothing, 
you  possess  all  things.  God  cannot  desert 
you ;  His  gift  of  a  Saviour  is  the  pledge  that 
He  will  give  you  all  that  you  really  need. 
Try  and  cling  to  Him.  He  will  liclp  you, 
even  in  your  poverty,  to  set  the  joy-l)ells  ring- 
ing in  your  heart,-  and  to  offer  "  thanks  unto 
Him  for  His  Unspeakable  Gift." 

It  may  be  that  you  are  lone///  —  that  you 
are  away  from  those  dearest  to  you  —  that 
you  are  surrounded  by  many  who  cannot  sym- 
pathize with  you  —  that  harsh  and  irritating 


150  LAST   WORDS. 

words  bring  continual  uneasiness  and  pain 
to  your  heart,  and  that  you  have  no  one  upon 
whom  you  can  lean  for  companionship  and 
suppo];t.  Then  seek  these  in  Jesus.  I  do  not 
say  that  it  is  easy  to  realize  the  nearness,  the 
love,  the  confidence  of  an  unseen  Saviour.  I 
do  not  think  it  is.  But  I  know  that  these 
may  be,  and  are,  felt  by  His  children  who,  not 
having  seen,  yet  have  believed.  If  in  the 
hour  of  loneliness  you  are  brought  near  to  Him 
—  if  you  are  enaljled  to  realize  the  truth  of 
His  Word,  "  Draw  nigh  to  God,  and  He  will 
draw  nigh  to  you,"  —  you  will  arise  to  find 
great  peace  within  your  heart,  the  song  com- 
ing from  your  lips, "  It  is  good  for  me  to  draw 
nigh  unto  God,"  and  the  chime  already  sound- 
ing in  unspoken  praise. 

One  word  more  to  any  reader  of  these 
pages  who  may  be  amongst  the  bereaved. 
Can  there  be  any  joyful  strain  for  you  until 
the  chimes  of  heaven  welcome  you  to  reunion 
with  those  —  your  beloved  —  who  have  gone 
before  ?  Here,  where  at  every  moment  you 
miss  the  answering  voice  and  look  and  com- 


LAST   WORDS.  151 

panionsliip  which  will  never  more  waken  you 
to  a  constant  delight,  can  you  desire  or  expect 
anything  beyond  submission  and  the  peace  of 
resignation  ?  Is  any  somid  to  echo  through 
the  inner  temple  of  your  heart  Imt  the  secret 
knell  heard  in  still  wMches  of  the  night, 
hi  the  early  wakings  of  the  morning,  and 
in  the  midst  of  others'  joys  which  seem  to 
ripple  round  in  waves  of  gladness,  but  be- 
tween which  and  vour  secret  soul  there  is 
a  line  of  separation  which  you  feel  can  never 
be  passed  ? 

I  think  that  He  wiio  is  the  Resurrection  and 
the  Life  may  even  to  you  bring  such  a  sense 
of  the  greatness  of  the  Unspeakable  Gift, 
that,  "  Thanks  be  unto  God,"  will  ring 
through  your  heart  with  a  joy  different  from 
all  others  —  that  which  comes  from  being 
a'  partaker  with  Christ  of  sorrow,  and  a  par- 
taker of  His  consolations  —  that  which  comes 
from  the  intimacy  with  Him  into  which  grief 
and  bereavement  admit  His  children  —  that 
of  which  He  Himself  spake,  saying,  "  Your 
joy  no  man  taketh  from  you." 


152  LAST   WORDS. 

Yes,  we  must  "  keep  the  chimes  going " 
here,  in  the  time  of  our  warfare  and  pilgrim- 
age ;  "  church  bells,"  as  old  George  Herbert 
hath  it,  "  above  the  starres  hearde." 

And  He  who  hears  them  above  the  stars 
is  the  Same  who  hath  said,  "  In  my  Father's 
house  are  many  mansions :  I  go  to  prepare  a 
place  for  you.  And  if  I  go  and  prepare 
place  for  you,  I  will  come  again  and  receive 
you  unto  Myself,  that  where  I  am  there  ye 
may  be  also." 


a 


Cambridge :  Press  of  John  WilBon  and  Son. 


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Making  this  a  special  department  in  our  business,  ice  have  been 
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$1.25. 

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"  His  pictures  are  not  only  drawn  with  masterl}'  accuracy  and 
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faculty  of  embodying  the  humorous  element  in  the  occupations 
and  expressions  of  childhood." —  The  Nursery. 

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BOY  ARTISTS  ;  or,  Sketches  of  the  Childhood 
of  Michael  Angelo,  Mozart,  Haydn,  Watteau,  and 
Sebastian    Gomez.     Translated   from    the  French  of 

JMdlle.  Eugenie  Foa.     16mo.  Illustrated $1.00 

Our  critic  says;  "  The  French  biographical  stories  of  Madame 


24  PUBLICATIONS  OF 

Foa,  are  very  life-like,  interesting,  and  well  worth  reproduction 
in  English  dress.  I  would  certainly  recommend  their  publication, 
for  they  are  very  attractive." 

COPSLEY  ANIMALS,  Preserved  in  Proverbs.     16mo. 

bevelled  boards,  red  edge.     Si. 25. 

"  The  family  histories  here  described  are  commendable  in  no 
common  degree;  full  of  a  sweet  and  gentle  spirit,  without 
sickliness  ;  religious  in  tone  and  the  high  morals  inculcated, 
without  a  trace  of  such  sectarianism  as  would  exclude  them  from 
the  fireside  of  church  or  chapel-goer;  not  without  nice  touches 
of  humor,  clear  of  exaggeration.  It  must  be  a  healthy  pleasure 
to  write  —  it  is  to  read  —  such  books  for  the  young  as  '  Copsley 
Annals.' "  —  AthencBum. 

"  A  delightful  book,  and  one  which  will  afford  pleasant  enter- 
tainment to  readers,  old  and  young.  A  thoroughly  good  and 
well-written  story."  —  Record. 

"  Here  is  wit,  tenderness,  and  good  writing  enough  for  twice 
as  large  a  volume.  It  is  altogether  a  most  fascinating  perform- 
ance, likely  to  please  poor  and  rich,  young  and  old." — Literary 
Churchman. 

WINTER  AND  SUMMER  AT  BURTON 
HALL.  By  the  author  of  "  Cushions  and  Corners." 
16mo.     Illustrated $1.00 

We  take  pleasure  in  offering  to  the  thousands  who  have  read 
"Cushions  and  Corners"  with  delight,  another  book  by  the 
same  charming  writer.  Before  deciding  to  reprint  it,  we  gave 
the  English  copy  to  several  children  to  read,  and  our  juvenile 
jury  returned  the  unanimous  verdict  that  it  was  one  of  the 
best  stories  thej^  had  ever  read. 

CUSHIONS  AND  CORNERS  :  or,  Holidays  at 
Old  Orchard.  New  Edition.  16mo.  Illustrated.  214 
pages.     Price  reduced  to  $1.00. 

"A  capital  delineation  of  childish  character,  the  conversations 
are  managed  ver}'  naturally,  and  the  contrast  between  the  dis- 
positions, so  well  symbolized  by  a  cushion  and  a  sharp  corner, 
respectively,  is  wrought  out  skilfully,  and  in  a  most  interestmg 
manner."  —  The  Nation. 


E.  P.  DUITON  AND  CO.,  BOSTON.  25 

"The  author  has  humor  and  dramatic  power,  and  an  appre- 
ciation of  children's  tastes  ;  the  book  has  a  good  moral  be- 
sides." —  Springjield  Republican. 

NED  GRANT'S  QUEST.  A  Story  for  Chilcben. 
By  the  author  of  "Bertha  Weisser's  Wish."  195 
pages.     Price  reduced  to  $1.00. 

"  The  young  folks  who  are  so  fortunate  as  to  get  hold  of  this 
book  will  follow  the  fortunes  of  Ned  Grant  with  great  interest." 
—  Providence  Press. 

"  The  writer  is  one  of  our  best  story-tellers,  and  this  is  such  a 
book  as  goes  right  to  the  heart  of  a  boy."  —  Churchman. 

FRANK  STIRLING'S  CHOICE.  By  Maria 
H.  Bulfinch.     Price  reduced  to  $1.00. 

"  Christian  parents  maj'  do  much  good  by  placing  this  book 
in  the  hands  of  every  bright  and  thoughtful  boy." 

"  An  excellent  storj'  of  a  boyhood  and  youth  ending  in  the 
ministry  of  the  Church."  —  Advertiser. 

FANNIE    AND    ROBBIE.     A   Year  Book  for 

Children  of  the  Church.     Price  75  cents. 

"  Fannie  wished  to  do  some  good  in  Lent,  and  sought  out 
Robbie,  the  lame  son  of  a  poor  widow,  as  a  subject.  She  read 
to  him,  taught  him  about  the  Christian  Seasons:  when  he  got 
well  took  him  to  the  Sunday-school,  and  so  became  useful."  — 
Connecticut  Churchman. 

"  The  interest  is  well  sustained,  and  youth  of  both  sexes  will 
read  it  with  pleasure."  —  Protestant  Churchman. 

MISS  MATTY;  or,  Our  Yoiiugest  Passenger. 
A  Tale  of  the  Sea.     Price  75  cents. 

"  A  capital  sea-story,  with  natural  scenes  and  characters,  and 
incidents  that  thrill  with  interest."  —  Albany  Argus. 

•'  Another  book  that  we  cjwi  highly  praise.    Any  small  man  or 

woman,  who,  after  reading  it,  would  not  be  better,  or  would  not 

try  to  be  better  —  for  the  spirit  may  be  willing,  the  flesh  w«ak 

" —  ought  hardly  to  be  taught  to  read  at  all,  or  made  to  le»r« 

iwice  over."  —  The  Nation. 


26  PUBLICATIONS  OF 

«  THE  OLD  CORNER  LIBRARY."  Contain- 
ing:—  Ned  Grant's  Quest,  Frank  Stirling's  Choice, 
Cushions  and  Corners,  and  Christmas  Holidays  at 
Cedar  Grove.     4  vols,  in  box.     Price  S4.00. 

"  Four  juvenile  publications,  handsome  in  fcrm,  tasteful  in 
illustrations,  interesting  in  matter,  and  pure  in  moral  tone."  — 
Transcript. 

THE    HOLIDAY    LIBRARY.     Containing:  — 
Miss  Matty,  Fannie  and  Robbie,  Easter  Holidays  at 
Cedar  Grove,  Bertha  Weisser,  Contraband  Christmas, 
and  A  Queen.     6  vols,  in  box.     Price  $4.50. 
"All  good  stories,  as  the  little  ones  tell  us."  —-Boston  Post 

CHILDREN'S    SONGS    FROM   THE    HILL- 
SIDE.     A  beautifully  illustrated  volume  of  Poetry 
for  Children.    Bevelled  boards,  gilt  edge,  S2.00. 
"  This  book  of  songs  wll  be  warmly  welcomod  by  a  multitude 
of  households  all  over  the  land.     These  verses  were  written  for 
children,  but  both  old  age  and  youth  will  read  them  with  de- 
light." —  Christian  Times. 

"  A  charming  collection  of  songs,  poems,  and  charades  for  tho 
little  ones.  Illustrated  by  Kilburn  in  admirable  taste,  printed 
on  satin  paper  at  the  '  Riverside  Press,'  and  bound  in  bright  col- 
ors and  gold,  it  is,  every  way,  a  perfect  thing." 

OTTALIE'S    STORIES   FOR  THE   LITTLE 

FOLKS.  Translated  from  the  German  of  Madame 
Ottalie  Wildermuth  ;  containing  the  following  stories, 
bound  together :  — 

Frau  Luna,  and  Her  Voyages. 
A  Queen,  A  Story  for  Girls. 
Leon  and  Zephie  ;  or,  the  Little  Wan- 
derers. 
16mo,  308  pages,  4  fine  wood- cuts $1.50. 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last 
date  stamped  below 


5m-2,'31 


PR 

4699 

E51i 


JJJLLLOtt   - 
I  must  keep 
the  chimes 
going  ~ 


AA    000  3662426 


PR 

4699 

E51i 


iiSSS 


